Shadows of Damnation
by Chris Walker
Summary: An ancient daemon with a past veiled in bleakest shadow, Be'lakor First-Damned is a creature fueled by his own ambitions and a limitless cruelty. When a zealous and vengeful Sister of Battle chases him into the Immaterium, that cruelty influences him to make her an offer: She may accompany him out of this mad realm, so long as she endures and bests the challenges of the Dark Gods.
1. Chapter 1: The Death of a Planet

_Marvelous..._

Be'lakor First-Damned allowed a proud smirk to adorn his inhuman, daemonic visage. It was a terrible and cruel expression, one that only grew greater and more wicked in its form as the minutes passed by. Each of those minutes were ones spent witnessing the smoldering carnage of what lay before him.

What he saw, what filled him with such a foul satisfaction was the spectacle of the ruination of his kingdom. The lips lining his fanged mouth split back, the jagged white teeth within clicking together like sets of sharpened knives of bone as his scarlet eyes scanned over the tattered remains of the world of Tolus. Every detail he drank in and tasted of deeply, every lost life he savoured like the finest wine.

 _Simply marvelous..._

Tolus, one of the many kingdoms he had forged in the name of the Ruinous Powers and himself. Tolus, a barren planet, once lush and full of vibrant life until he set his cloven-clawed feet upon it many a millennia ago. He was quick to bring its human populace under his mighty heel, forcing them to worship him as a god and erect unholy monuments in his honour. Toiling under his shadow for countless generations, the land began to spoil and the sky turned dark with corruptive energies from the Warp itself—the realm by which Chaos manifested and from which the fearsome Daemon Prince called his true home.

If there were any to witness him descend from his prime temple and make his way onto the lifeless field before it, they would see that Be'lakor's form was bulky with hard muscle and many times taller than a mortal man. Monstrous and leathery bat-like wings adorned his back, currently folded together as they were not in use. With skin as grey as the ashes of the innumerable foes he had incinerated in psychic flame with his potent sorcerous powers in ages past, upon the center of his pale, armourless chest was something like a brand; a symbol resembling several arrows pointing in separate directions—the mark of Chaos Undivided.

His great, horned head turned about many a time, looking far and wide for any sort of life still active upon this hellscape of rock and iron. Wherever he wandered next and wherever his prying eyes traveled, the signs of great and terrible battle that had occurred from just outside his palace and far beyond it were apparent everywhere. The carnage ranged from the stench of freshly spilled blood and the choking fumes of smoke, to the sight of innumerable corpses strewn about like blades of grass upon a field. The ground itself had become dampened with mortal ichor, and it left a most pungent and familiar scent in the otherwise dry air that tickled his nostrils like the wondrous smell of a blooming flower.

Khorne, the Chaos God of war and bloodshed, among other, equally brutal professions, was sure to smile at this offering. Be'lakor thought this to himself as he ventured onward, knowing he would not return to his regal abode.

And on the subject of the gods, Khorne surely was not the only one witnessing or partaking in this planet's undoing. Truly, each of the gods granted Be'lakor luck enough that both sides had wiped the other out. Swelling with pride, the Daemon Prince continued to walk about the endless battlefield, stepping on or over every corpse to blight his path, making sure no survivors on either side were still breathing and lucid enough to witness him. Lest he allowed certain individuals to know of scant and minor clues to his presence in the universe, he preferred to make sure that no one knew of his existence at all. And now that he was through with this world and its pitiful inhabitants, he knew it was time to move on to greener pastures and begin anew.

His move was made when the Imperium of Man came upon his previously-lost world and realized the extent of how those living upon it had fallen to Chaos. With haste and conviction they sent their warriors to try and cleanse it of the abhorred influence. Like chess pieces being moved, Be'lakor waited his turn patiently before it came. And when it did, he struck without either warning, nor mercy.

At his decree, the people who lived under his rule rose up en masse and fought back against the aggressors and the influence of their false Emperor with reckless abandon, giving their lives in their vacuous lust to please their tyrant. At the Dark Master's beck and call, daemons of all varieties and allegiance entered this dimension at will and ran rampant from one pole to the next, spreading madness, death and mayhem where they went, indifferent to which side their fangs sunk into. The Imperium tried with all the might that was theirs to put down this sudden, rampaging swarm, but try as they might, they were swiftly overwhelmed by it and all was drowned beneath the tide.

With their agents on the earth all dead or dying, unknowing to the true being who orchestrated this entire debacle eons prior, it would be only a matter of time before they put this entire world to the torch through an act of Exterminatus, as was their custom for many human worlds they couldn't keep for themselves.

Excellent he thought again to himself. Everything was going according to his design. This world was due to turn to space dust, and with it would be all traces of his passing. All traces of his doings and his secrets. Though he dwelt deeply on this pleasing fact, Be'lakor's attention on it was snapped away in one sudden motion when a shape, not as inanimate or Chaos-consumed as practically everything else in his sight, caught his eye. He had finally spotted the first sign of life since departing, and most appropriately, he turned his full view upon it.

After a brief examination of the lone character, Be'lakor knew without a shred of doubt that it was a member of the warrior order of the Adepta Sororitas, better known by their more widely-used moniker, the "Sisters of Battle." The Sisters of Battle, an exclusively female organization formed by the Imperium of Man ages ago, specialized in the hunting of those deemed heretical in their view. It was no small wonder why they were here, posing as the Imperium's main strike force. Upon getting a whiff of anything that might test their zealous devotion, they would come running over like a cluster of moths flittering toward a flame.

Be'lakor squinted, intrigued and wishing to gain further insight on this being, mostly out of curiosity as to how she was the only one not to also be resting in death's uncaring embrace. Right now she sat on the end of a collapsed stone pillar that used to be a temple column; the rest of the building which it belonged was a shattered shape far behind her. The warrior nun's body itself was covered in ceramite armour of a black colouration and highlighted with vivid crimson vestments—the style matching the Sororitas order known as the "Order of Our Martyred Lady". Short, snow white hair fell from her exposed head, the only part of her that revealed her pallid flesh. She had not yet notice his presence, given in part due to how she was set.

Her crown hung low, eyes focused on the bloody ground as her gauntleted hands remained clasped together, trembling viciously. She was clearly in deepest thought instead of prayer, and from what Be'lakor could only assume, those thoughts were on the wondrously horrific battle that had just taken place. To her comrades whose cadavers now littered the ground beside her staring at nothing with unblinking, dead and dull eyes. To how they fought beside her. Their final, brutal moments. It was all so very delicious for the daemon to muse on just how it all must have occurred.

With silence unbefitting of something his size, Be'lakor floated closer to the Battle-Sister through the sea of bodies and inspected her further, spotting more things of interest on her person in the process. Resting on one side of the warrioress' sitting shape was a mighty boltgun, and on the other, like a lump of stone, was a heavily damaged Sabbat Pattern helmet; it was a form of helm reserved typically for the more laudable within the Sister's ranks. A large and thick book displaying the Imperial seal laid by her hip, laced with a thin chain hanging from her shoulder, indubitably a tome dedicated to the supposed word of the Emperor.

She must have caught a glimpse of Be'lakor from the corner of her sight, for her head soon lifted and stared in the daemon's direction. Right off her eyes, both pale blue and bearing the characteristics of jagged shards of ice, widened in alarm. Her brow arched in fury soon after and her teeth clenched together. With the overall look she bore both incredulous and full of rage, she burst onto her feet without fail nor care for her ruined helmet, bolter in hand. Aiming at him with a cry demanding vengeance, she fired the weapon several times, sending projectiles the Daemon Prince's way on a loud, fiery stream.

Even if he chose not to act against this assault, there was little worry swimming in Be'lakor's head on the possibility that this attack could hurt, much less scrape over his tainted flesh. After effortlessly dodging the first two shots he lifted the weapon he carried, the legendary Blade of Shadows, to intercept the remaining projectiles. The holy ammunition of the bolter deflected off of the long, wide, dark surface of the Warp-forged etherblade as it flickered into reality, sending the bolts rebounding away and into the stale earth around him. The Sister of Battle continued to take careful aim at her hated foe and fired round after thunderous round in spite of the blatant lack of effect until her clip ran out, upon which she finally halted and slowly lowered her holy weapon.

Smoke left the boltgun's barrel in a thick, black stream. The Battle-Sister took a long, breathless look his way, realizing he was still not on the offense. Be'lakor, after raising his blade upward in a brief stroke until its sheen glimmered in the dim sun's light and then was lowered by his side, cast her as dry a look as he could form.

"You are truly a brave soul to look upon and defy me in such a manner, alone and lacking fear of any sort," he cackled in a voice as rich as an ocean and as deep as an endless abyss, showing her in tone alone that he was amused by her stubborn antics and refusal to flee after what had commenced. "To stand against me, even while your allies lie dead at my feet, is truly a commendable thing to behold. But futility is ever so often a thing from which commendable, albeit pointless, deeds are birthed."

The Battle-Sister did not respond. Her glare merely hardened, as did her shuddering grip around her bolter. A brow lifted upon the daemon's face, his countenance shifting slightly into a more thoughtful mien.

"But then again... my own paltry retinue has suffered just as well a fate." A smaller, crueler laugh left him. "And of that, you have my appreciation, human. Observing them as they were was like watching a pet succumbing to a festering wound. It was a thing of... relief to see a gaggle of Imperial bootlicks put them out of their collective misery. Of that I am sincere."

"Whether or not what you say is the truth, you'll pay dearly for what you have done here." She finally spoke to the daemon, her tone firm as stone, but bearing just enough emotion to betray her sheer, unbridled anger. "I may die as my sisters and brothers have, and I may suffer my final fate to you. But you... you'll not see the end of this day either, daemon."

"Oh, I believe I will," Be'lakor replied. He stroked his free hand over his chin, his relaxed stare mocking to the mortal being. "But even so, what makes you so sure I am to fall here?"

"This world shall soon be destroyed." Her tone was venomous. "Minutes from now, _Exterminatus_ is due to begin. This world and the Chaos infecting it shall die in a blaze of flame. And with it, you will be obliterated as well. With it, you will be sent screaming back into the Warp from whence you came amidst a hail of death. The glory you sought to attain for your dark gods will vanish to nothing."

"And so shall you," Be'lakor remarked.

She scoffed. "My life is of little concern. I would gladly give it to ensure the demise of those who would bring only destruction to mankind."

Be'lakor, though not out malice, fell silent at these words. Her mind racing on the image that her primary weapon would provide little damage to this wretched monster, the Battle-Sister's thoughts went back to a daemon-hunting Ordo Malleus Inquisitor she and her fellow Adepta Sororitas had accompanied to this site. He had perished alongside them, but his body still laid nearby. She remembered he wielded a daemonhammer, a tool crafted from rare ores and other assorted materials meant wholly to deal with the physical manifestations of Chaos. Upon casting her eyes down to him from several meters away, she spied such a thing, still stained with blood at its fore, resting in his dead grasp. Holstering her boltgun onto a chain by her side, she moved quickly his way. Be'lakor watched her go to him calmly, as a hawk might observe its prey from afar. Reaching the Inquisitor soon enough, the Battle-Sister grabbed the sacred weapon from his limp hands, lifting the heavy object into both of her own with little effort. She cast a scowl the daemon's way, the hammer already radiating with energies harmful to those abominations of unreality which spawned from the Immaterium.

"I will not cease my attack until one of us lies dead upon this ground."

A jolt of pleasure coursed down the First-Damned's spine when he saw what she had done, and a wicked grin stretched over his maw when he heard her defiant threat. His body arched forward a small ways, his stance becoming combative. "Then kill me, if you can," he enjoined. "I know you wish so very much to do so. I can see your unkempt vengeance shine like a gem within your heart. And so I bid you to try."

The Sister of Battle heard his taunt well. Unable to contain her wrath any longer, she charged forward at the much larger being of fell origin and lunged with a roar, the daemonhammer held high. Be'lakor stood his ground as he watched her come at him with visible delight, lowering his blade enough to meet hers with ease. Sparks flying and the sound of impacting metal screeching out eerily with every given blow, the weapons clashed together repeatedly.

Feeling the ecstatic, wondrous thrill only combat like this could provide for him, Be'lakor began to indulge himself in the moment. He allowed his sword to simply lift and fall to knock each strike of the baneful hammer away, though he kept enough fluidity in his movements to seem like he was fighting for real. If there was anything he thirsted for more than overcoming a worthy foe when given an opportunity such as this, it was by offering them false hope before pettily stealing it away. Soon enough, when her many attacks came at him, each one truly delivered with the intent to kill utterly, it seemed more like her weapon was hitting off of a shadow of itself upon a wall than it did anything resembling an even duel.

However, when several minutes of it passed, Be'lakor discovered that something was starting to change. It became apparent that she was actually beginning to gain some footing and near-hits upon the daemon's tough hide. Discerning that his swelling pride had potential to bring his downfall, measly a chance for that to happen as it was, Be'lakor quit his feigning at last.

Lifting up the backhand of his mighty claw upon knocking away her next attack, he swung it with a shout, savagely batting the Battle-Sister away as a cat would toss a mouse with its paw. She flew through the air like a tossed stone until her back smashed against a ruined wall of the building she once resting far in front of, rebounding off of it with a crack of damaged stone and dropping to the ground with a loud thud.

"Impressive, but futile!" boomed Be'lakor, chuckling to himself as he so very rarely complemented his adversaries and meant it. He moved swiftly over to his foe while she picked herself off of the ground, pushing up from it with the head of the hammer.

The wind had been knocked completely out of her from the great and inhumanly powerful blow. She wiped the last of the spittle to line her rosy lips with the end of her darkly gauntleted arm regardless. However, it was as she looked up and saw the daemonic shape looming over her when she knew what was coming. Lacking the ability for the moment to even lift her hammer, the Battle-Sister, wheezing as she attempted to recuperate and catch her breath, closed her eyes in acceptance of her fate as he raised his sword upward in preparation for the finishing blow.

He never delivered it. A sound reminiscent of the shrieking whistle of a shell from cannon fire went off in the distance, followed by the appropriate sound of an explosion. Within seconds of hearing it, the ground upon which both of them stood trembled, if just enough to shake up some of the rubble behind them. Be'lakor completely halted in his action when he sensed the unmistakable vibrations gracing the floor, though they did not actually effect his sense of balance. He looked around and then above himself, as though querying what the disturbance was. Seeing him apparently dumbfounded, the warrior-nun rose fully to her feet and decided to sum up the apparent situation to him.

"Those... are the initial orbital strikes. The beginning of... _Exterminatus_ ," she scantly breathed, her bruised face twisting into a smug and hateful sneer as Be'lakor's eyes dropped from their view on the sky to meet hers.

Keeping that expression, she continued, "I can see it on your face. You know what this is and what's coming. You know that there are hundreds of ships above this world. They are each firing down all the artillery they have. This planet's surface will be obliterated in minutes. _Minutes._ "

Be'lakor held his gaze on her, eyeing her hawkishly until his visage turned indifferent. "Poor you, then," finally bid the Daemon Prince. At that, the Battle-Sister's satisfied smile immediately vanished.

"What? Do you not care for your approaching fate, abomination?"

"It is not mine to suffer," he casually stated in a smooth and unperturbed tone, slacking his grip upon his blade. "Yours, but not mine."

"What do you mean?" she again asked, traipsing a meter in his direction with the last of her strength returning to her, desperate to know what was keeping him from fearing for the banishment of his putrid soul from the realm his kind loved only to torment and distort. The ground shuddered briefly again as the warrioress spoke, and a series of loud explosions went out, picking up in intensity until they were all that could be heard in the background.

"I mean that I wish to leave now. Not for reasons of shame or because your kind have bested me, but because I have grown weary of this little game," he responded, the thundering growing louder in the background. "The Warp is my one, true home, and I bear enough influence on this hallowed ground to enter it whenever it suits me. And it is where I shall go now, while this world burns to cinder and ash."

The warrior nun tried to form something to combat her shock at this little fact, but found herself unable to do anything when Be'lakor acted next. Looking away from her, he raised his clawed hand upward, and upon summing up a fraction of his power into the stroke, the air a short ways in front of him seemed to start rippling about and actually _pulsate_ from the unstable energies of Chaos, opening up what the observing Battle-Sister could only assume was indeed a pathway to the Immaterium. Teeth bared in outrage, she increased the tensity of her grip around her weapon's metal shaft until her knuckles felt sore.

"No... _No!_ " A wrathful cry tore forth from the Battle-Sister's mouth. The very ground she stood upon quaked violently from the impact of the multitude of orbital strikes hitting the planet from just miles away, mountains splitting open somewhere in the distance as the barrage closed in on their position. With the sheer level of pure hate clouding her mind, she was uncaring of the deafening cacophony of destruction and oncoming death reaching its final climax, focused solely instead on the daemon before her.

"You're meant to perish _here!_ You'll not escape your doom! You'll not escape _me!_ Not this easily!"

For all of the shrill volume born in her pitch, Be'lakor merely ignored her rantings among the all but deafening peal of the world's imminent passing into oblivion. With a sense of leisure in his movements he turned his back on the warrior nun and walked away from his opponent, contenting himself with leaving her to perish alongside the planet.

As he moved into his portal, his forgotten enemy stumbled desperately his way through the scattering tempest of oncoming debris and violently trembling earth with her weapon raised, the earsplitting choir of thunder surrounding them. Scant seconds remained before searing flame and devastating rounds from the ships in the heavens above were due to envelope this very spot.

Taking one more step forth, Be'lakor had vanished into the Warp and disappeared from the material world that most mortals knew so well. Not many moments after his departure, Tolus' entire surface was engulfed in a cataclysm of shell and fire; rendered blackened and charred, ruined utterly, and stripped bare of feature and life from the unyielding hail of cleansing orbital fire.

 _Exterminatus_ , terrible as it always was, was complete.


	2. Chapter 2: Where Reality Comes to Die

Anessa, the sororita who fought the great daemon upon the surface of the doomed planet of Tolus, was true to her word when she cried out that she would pursue him to the end.

Summing up all the strength and balance she had, she dashed over the violently quaking surface of the world to as he marched through the portal he crafted, and then proceeded to make his calm, collected escape through. And no sooner had she leapt through it and escaped oblivion, she found herself falling sharply downward, hurtling through a heated sky at a speed that defied anything she had experienced in her life.

The searing dryness of the temperature surrounding her during the descent stung her eyes, blinding them with tears that it forced upon them to quench their parched surfaces. By the time she had blinked enough and rubbed them away with her armored hands, the fall ended and she met the frigid ground. The overall impact was a fair bit less damaging than what she had predicted it would have been, given the time it took for her to land, but it was still enough to knock her breathless, as well as throw the daemonhammer from her grasp. Coughing hard, she was soon able to get to her knees, and then her legs, her mind and body both trying to realize what had gone on and where they were. And then she opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was a harsh view. A view that truly startled her. A view of a landscape consumed utterly by Chaos, leaving not a shred nor scrap of order to be had. Now remembering the words of that wretched creature she was just fighting in her addled mind, she knew this was no ordinary world she was now in. It wasn't even a daemon world. This was the Warp itself. The Immaterium. The Aether. The place in which reality and reason came to die in darkness and despair.

Managing to gaze upward to where she had just fallen from was a crimson sky. Blood-red in texture, it possessed a sea of all-consuming clouds resembling shapeless flame and was alight with bolts of soundless lightning.

She stared, mouth slightly agape, for a short few seconds when already her senses told something was off. Dreadfully off. The air—if it even was that she sucked so instinctively into her lungs—brushed over face like a twisted, foreign wind. It insidiously cut under her skin like a voracious leech and brought on a queer feeling that solidified what it was she experienced. A feeling that was so different, so alien, so indescribable and unimaginably _wrong..._

Before she could halt herself, the Anessa fell back to her knees and sent her palms to the slushy, clay-esque ground, her breathing becoming long and laboured. Sweat fell from her forehead in thick, clear beads, dropping from her pallid flesh and to the floor of this horrid place. She retched aloud as her body disagreed with everything it was currently experiencing, trying with all its natural ability to adapt itself to the surroundings it was never meant to interact with.

For two long minutes, which felt more to Anessa like an agonizing eternity, she remained in such a state. After coughing up many great wads of spit, she finally lost the urge to hold back the growing torment knotting itself about within her bowels and vomited. Her fingers curled around the unstable earth they grasped onto while she heaved, a strange, dark and oily, seemingly harmless liquid seeped forth from it as she increased her grip; had she been in the state to see it, she would have compared the sight to a water being squeezed from a sponge.

When her ailing did come to an end and she was finally able to regain enough control over herself, if just enough to cease her emptying of her stomach's contents, she sat up. Taking in deep, choked gulps of the foul air, she steadily began to recover further, rising once more to her trembling legs. Sweat caked her forehead, but upon wiping an arm over it, most of it faded.

Anessa now had a regained hold on her mind, and she used it to check over her surroundings. That wretched daemon was nowhere in sight. What she could see was that she was amidst a strange, but not completely surreal bit of terrain, resembling a dense forest of tall, incredibly thin trees, each and every single one as white as the bones they represented in girth. No leaves covered their branches, leaving all their tips as pointed as the ends of primitive spears.

Beyond the woodland, from as far as the Battle-Sister could see above and through the tip of the treeline, was the the rest of the Immaterium. It was indeed a land of pure Chaos, plagued by mountains made up of frozen flame and sinkholes that resembled titanic, fanged maws. Large masses of shattered land floated about in the air above them at random, untethered and uncontrolled by something so silly in this realm as gravity, and alongside them flew clustered globs of shapeless and colourless matter that moved about in a manner most grotesque, almost as though they were alive.

Shaking her head, Anessa set her focus on what really mattered now - her gear. Checking her boltgun chained to her side and the two clips of ammo she had left for it, he gaze fell next to her holy tome, still in one piece. It was a thick book filled end to end with the religious texts that praised the Emperor and his deeds, and strengthened her resolve every time she remembered its many passages. And next, laying flatly two feet next to her, Anessa saw the Inquisitor's daemonhammer she had inherited. She instantly walked up to it, her stride slow but strong, and hastily grabbed ahold of its handle.

Lifting it up, great a weight as the holy weapon was, she took another look at the horizon of this demented dimension. She had been taught about it greatly as she trained to become a Battle-Sister, and was told of just what manner of ungodly horrors were spawned from it. She had fought her fair share of them, too. But the records of all the Immaterium itself was about from the mortal view were from those who had been lost to insanity. To see it was a thing few ever dreamed of doing, and a scarce fewer than that ever actually had a moment to witness. It was impractical to so much as think of being here.

And yet, here was where she was. A realm ruled by madness. A place where nightmares were made real by but a thought. A place where time was dead and meaning had no meaning. And this terrified her.

But as fearful as she was with her new conundrum, she had plenty of courage to combat it as well. It was an ally she was trained from her youth to bear, and she wore it now like the ceramite armour covering her frame. Upon inhaling and exhaling the deepest breath of perhaps her entire life, that courage influenced her body to do what it had to do next. Taking long, heavy steps, Anessa wandered into the woodland, her pace slow and purposeful. With each step she took, her legs felt like they were lined with lead and her was chest filled with only fiery coals. In spite all of that and all that had happened to her, she persevered with grim determination, a light din sounding out about her.

It took her a short while into her trek to realize that what she was hearing in the background were voices. Not two or three, but hundreds of small, whisper-like sounds she found trouble in making out. Stopping to listen to them closer, she came to the conclusion that the _trees_ of this forest seemed to be the source of the sounds. Yes, she discovered for sure after growing close to one, it _was_ the trees making the noises. Each one had its own designation and pitch, though none had quite masculine or feminine tones to them. Some cried in loud, miserable sobs, some laughed in demented cackles, but most spoke in odd, gibbering sentences, uttering nothing but nonsense to the lost Sister.

Anessa soon lost interest when she saw it was all as harmless as it could be, and moved onward until reaching wide clearing in the forest after almost an hour of travel. Mere seconds after stepping into it, a bloodcurdling scream went out. With that sudden burst of noise, the endless whispers of the trees were blotted out like the droning of gnat's wings to a lion's call. The shriek was completely unlike the sounds of the trees within the forest, and at its cry, they all seemed to hush themselves until the only sound to plague her now was the shrieking. Attempting to pinpoint where the screaming was originating from, Anessa found her eyes soon pointing upward.

And there, as could be seen flying far above the forest from the unobstructed view the clearing brought on, were several distinguishable shapes. Their inhuman, weedy bodies were supported through the sky by pairs of large, bat-like wings, currently outstretched and beating rapidly in their very bestial haste to reach her. Bearing pale red skin and sporting a light mane of dark grey fur running down their backs, they overall resembled the gargoyles that many an Imperial spire had constructed on the edges of their titanic surfaces.

Furies. Anessa knew that was what they were, and she knew it right off. She had been granted access by her peers in times past to learn about and how to deal with the various types of daemons the lost and damned heretics had the potential to summon forth, and she recognized them immediately as the breed referred to as 'furies'. Yes, these kinds were unmistakably the loathsome furies of Chaos; the roving, feral beasts of only the lowest of standings, said to be moulded into being by the souls of those who worshiped the Ruinous Powers for their own selfish desires and died before they could commit their true allegiance to any of the Dark Gods.

And they were clearly heading her way; no doubt as to what their purpose for doing so was. Hoisting her daemonhammer into both of her hands, her grip on it fierce but fair, Anessa readied herself for action.

Battle was soon upon her, as the furies only sped up their assault after seeing their prey stand still instead of run. A particularly large one flew well past the others in its haste to reach its quarry with another earsplitting screech, hooked claws stretched out, its beady red eyes focused on her with murderous, hungering intent. Anessa saw the creature well, her teeth gritting as she prepared her move.

It was a meager two feet from her when Anessa, her reflexes faster than the daemon's, stepped aside and avoided the coming swipe it made. Rearing her hammer back, she struck it forth; driving the glowing weapon low at its legs in a mighty horizontal swing, taking them both out with sickening snapping noises in that one strike. Utterly unprepared for this outcome, the fury impacted against the ground with a pitiful yowl, its legs evidently broken. Not giving it the time to recover from the devastating wound, Anessa raised her weapon up again and prepared to finish the twisted beast off.

With a growl, Anessa drove the fore of the hammer downward and into the skull of the puling daemon, effortlessly cracking into what felt like bone. Gurgling out a final whimper just as the weapon hit home, the fury fell silent as red ichor spilled forth from its fresh wound.

Anessa pulled the daemonhammer back up just in time to have it meet the other encroaching monstrosities. With the high number of them coming at her at once as she prepared to deal with their incursion, there was really little thought cautioning her from not unleashing her wrath upon them indiscriminately. And that was what she did.

Without mercy she drove her mighty weapon directly into the closest one to her, splitting open its chest, scattering splintered bone and tearing it partially asunder with the force, throwing it a dozen meters away. Next, as the main group was ganging up on her, she performed a downwards horizontal swing, rebounding the holy warhammer's end off of two of the creatures simultaneously. While one of the pair was struck across the face, shattering it as though it was nothing more than glass and killing it instantly, the other was only grazed off the side of its breast. The blow was still strong enough to drop it to the ground, but not severely injure it. That mattered not in the end, for Anessa quickly finished it off as it tried to scramble back to its legs with a roaring pounce, hefting the hammer upward and smashing it against its cranium, reducing its hideous visage to shapeless, greyish-reddish pulp.

No sooner had they all tried ganging up on her for their attack, the few furies that still lived jumped away or else halted their diving mid-stride and began to flee in a most clumsy, pell-nell fashion to take back into the air. Each one squeaked, squawked and squealed in fright as they abandoned what they all once thought seconds prior was an easy kill. Anessa stood over the still-twitching figures of the four furies she had slain, holy hammer held high in preparation to end any more that dared approach. Her fierce scowl lifted when the last of the furies vanished back into the air of the Warp and vanished from view, and with that she lowered her weapon.

Staring downward, she took in in her gruesome handiwork and inhaled deeply as she recovered from the bout of adrenaline-fueled action. The blows she gave them had thoroughly caved in the various parts of their forms, leaving them all sharing the image of a twitching, broken mess.

Taking a final look at them, then back at the sky to make double sure the daemonic beasts were not returning for a second attack, she partially lowered her guard and continued onward through the forest of whispers. Her mind slowing down to what it was prior, Anessa was beginning to feel incredibly vexed now, but she cleared her tired mind with a soft prayer. Prayer was not enough, though, as the continuation of her journey lasted not three minutes before something else, a voice, cut through the tense air.

"Wretched beasts, are they not?" This new voice was not like the sounds the trees gave off. It was something she caught right off; it was intelligent and _familiar_. Spinning around, Anessa located the source of it instantly.

There, not five meters away, was the Daemon Prince she had spent the last of her time in realspace fighting against. His massive shape was like a living shadow, his wings folded behind his back, several human skulls visibly weaved unto them by metal chains. More chains and what resembled chainmail as well made up the garments he wore around and over his waist, bordering some thick and mighty leg armour. The portions of the carapace were pieces of brazen, warp-forge metal, pounded into their current shape by refined tools and held in place by some of the many jagged spikes of thick bone that protruded from his body. His great sword rested in one hand, but it looked less it was prepared for a skirmish and more like he was holding it idly, waiting for nothing in particular.

His stare toward the Battle Sister most curious, he gave off a large, toothy grin. "You seem to still be trying to get to grips with your situation."

" _You!_ " shouted back Anessa, pointing a finger accusingly his way, the limb itself trembling with newfound rage. " _Blasphemous abomination!_ You _dare_ show your face to me?!"

"A 'blasphemous' creature I may be, but I implore you use another insult, if that was what you were trying to accomplish. It is less offensive to me than you wish it to be," he deadpanned in his deep, smooth and regal tone. "And I suppose you thirst for answers."

Of that, Anessa could not disagree. "Where am I? Where did you bring us to?" she demanded to know in a growl that spat through grinding teeth, being three seconds away from charging him then and there in her lust to destroy her hated foe. The daemon raised a claw in an easy fashion, successfully halting her from enacting those righteously violent thoughts then and there with the image that he was not yet to attack.

"I brought myself into the Immaterium, but it was your own damn fault for following me to it," he responded in a disturbingly civil manner, confirming Anessa's terrible suspicions. "And these are the Formless Wastes. A barren no man's land, a sea of lost souls. The Ruinous Powers hold little dominion over the parts of it that do not neighbor their individual territories, and many a servant of theirs eke out small kingdoms within the depths of its unclaimed borders."

"Then this is where you shall meet your end. Here is where I shall destroy you," snarled she, "for all you have done, you will fall by my hand. Before I inevitably lose my life, I _will_ ensure that, at least."

The daemon looked more tickled than anything by that remark. Throwing his head back, a tremendous, echoing laugh escaped him, and like some twisted choir to accompany it, the sounds of the whispering forest joined him in the ridiculing noise with insane, chittering laughter of their own. He stopped after a short time, and when he did, he cast a very entertained, yet amiably playful stare her way. "Is there really a point anymore? To that?" he then inquired, the sound of the forest surrounding them dying back down to its queer mixture of cackles, whines and indiscernible rantings. "You held only some power where I fought you a short time ago, and here you stand now, in a place where that power surely eludes you. I could flay the flesh, muscle and fat from your bones, in that order, with merely a thought."

"Then why do you not?" questioned Anessa. "Why do you stand there, idly watching me? You stated that you have tremendous power now, yet you did nothing to express it."

"I chose not to act because watching you best those lesser beasts was a most amusing experience; an experience I so often crave. Should I end your existence now, that will only serve to end that amusement, and I certainly do not wish for that." He ended the sentence with a small chuckle curling off of his long, grey, forked tongue. "And on another point, you should thank me for giving you assistance in getting used to the elements of this place."

Hearing that statement, Anessa gave the daemon a blank look, clearly and utterly confused. "What-?" she tried to say, unable to form any other words to follow it.

The daemon spoke again after witnessing her gawk. "Yes, I granted you a small... 'blessing', I should call it. I have influenced the warp around you to act in more pliable a fashion to your person, if just enough to keep your body and your mind intact from the stronger influences of this realm." He explained this in a manner most prideful. "We daemons, ones of grand power, like myself, have some direct control over reality and unreality. It was a very small feat to lend you my aid. And as to _why_ I did it. Hmm..."

He tapped his index claw upon his chin, still wearing that damned smile that irked Anessa so. "Allowing you to perish in the unforgiving folds of the Aether like an ant falling helplessly into a river seems rather _undignified_ for someone of your talents, however raw or refined they may be. And even so, I should compliment you on your natural fortitude. Most who have not been graced with Chaos' touch beforehand meet a most grisly fate if they dare to tread the Warp unprotected. But you... your will and strength of spirit is a fair bit... _stronger_ than most I've met. It could probably give you the chance to survive these wastes on your own, but I decided not to see if that indeed was the case."

"I have no need of your compliments, murderer of my Sisters and allies," Anessa spat hatefully, lifting her daemonhammer into both of her hands, readying it for battle with a crackle and sizzle of its energies. "And I have no need of your wretched 'help'. I would sooner allow you to end my life in the manner you previously described than stoop to such a blasphemous level. Only fools, the mad, and the wicked would consort with daemons for aid."

"Whatever action the faith you so foolishly cling to decrees you take, I, personally, believe you do need my assistance," he retorted with a huff. "I only want you around still to keep my attention from succumbing to simple boredom. I am so rarely generous, so I suggest you look over my proposal and then figure out your final choice."

"And what 'proposal' might that be?" inquired Anessa, still in wonder as to why she and the daemon had not yet begun to fight their terrible final battle.

"The chance to travel by my side through this land of Chaos," he told her just-so. "I said to you once upon that dying planet that this realm is my home, but I have no intention to remain here for long. There is a way to return to your treasured Materium, a way only I know of and can use, but it requires me to make my way there first. And for its duration, I invite you to join along, not as my foe or lackey, but as a... simple form of company."

And like that, Anessa lowered her hammer, far too shocked by this unheard of suggestion to keep her guard fully up. For several still minutes she stood there, unable to properly respond. Finally, she did speak, but her tone was oddly quieter than it was before. "What will happen to me if I do such a thing? If I were to accept your offer?" To this the daemon closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again to look at his sword, turning it to plant its blade into the twisted soil upon which he stood. He took the same hand once holding it and raised it up a short ways, placing it over the part of his chest where his black heart most likely rested.

"I swear upon my honour as the most favoured child of the gods that the moment we uncover the gateway back to realspace, I will allow you to go on your way, unscathed of any injury or influence you choose not to allow to come over you - assuming you survive the ordeal, anyhow," the Daemon Prince smirked. He lifted his hand from his breast and used it to pick his sword out of the ground, after which he got a good grasp on it again. Keeping the visage, he took several long, quiet steps over to a particularly large tree in the forest they both stood in and rubbed his free claw over its withered, white hide as Anessa could only watch with a skeptical glare.

"Do not take this chance lightly," he cautioned, stroking one of the tree's branches as though it was a pet, earning a soft cooing sound from the daemonic plant. "The journey will be long and arduous, I will admit that. I have authority and power enough to ward off most other of my kin from harassing us as we go, but I feel the gods will still wish to test a warrior like you, in one way or another. They can sense the presence of a mortal whose allegiance is against theirs the moment one finds the misfortune of coming into the Warp." He said this in a tone that was serious and somewhat somber. "If they are to perform such things, and they _will_ , I cannot interfere."

Going silent for a few seconds, he turned away from the plant to the Battle Sister. "With my wish made, I have but one, burning question remaining: what will you do if you refute my offer, now that I have laid my plan so bare for you?"

Anessa heard him well. Her stance was rigid and still, even as she responded. "As I have tried once before, I will continue to try with all my power to destroy you." She stated. "Should I succeed in ending you, or should you flee from here and never return, I will preserve the purity of my soul from the monstrous things who wish to claim it for themselves by taking my own life."

"Perishing to the blade of a servant of Khorne, or succumbing to the infection of a servant of Nurgle are much more preferable, honourable fates than committing suicide to spite the gods," suggested the daemon, shrugging. "I have witnessed many of your fanatic kind throw themselves into the fires of war with reckless abandon to please your Emperor. It is a thing of great and unshakable resolve, yes, but it also lacks a certain awareness to it. And yet, I do not see such mindless devotion shining in your eyes."

At that remark, a twinge of derogation raced through Anessa, lasting even as he spoke again. "And I mean no offense in that. When I looked into those mortal blue eyes of yours, I saw someone that has potential to overcome what may lay ahead. You have willpower. You have intelligence. You have tenacity. You have _hope._ Such things are difficult to discover being shared altogether by one person alone in this universe. And I sense they flow in your pretty head like the blood in your veins. So I ask you to refrain from spoiling this opportunity and at least take the time to look things over again."

The reaction to the insult stayed fresh before fading partially with the explanation he gave, Anessa found she had something more important than wrath to focus on. This daemon had made a promise of allowing her to follow him to potential salvation. A promise that held with it a chance to slay the horrors that dwelt in the Warp. She knew he was lying to her face when he curled his silver tongue around that fantasy, as daemons adored to do. But a piece of her wanted to believe him, if only to see if there really was a hidden grain or two of truth to it. What if there _was_ a method of escape? Should there truly be a chance to depart this nightmarish hell, she would take it without question. However, the price for such a thing was another question entirely. And she knew, without a shred of doubt, that there was only one way to find out.

Minutes of deep, silent thought came between Anessa and the daemon. Anessa let her eyes wander to her daemonhammer that once belonged to the Inquisitor she fought beside, looking over the sacred Imperial runes and seals that adorned its head and shaft. Finally, sending her view back to her foe, she gave her reluctant reply. "Very well," came her low, loathing rasp. "I will follow you where you go. I will take and overcome all the trials that the fiends you call your masters set for me, if it at least gives me a chance to spit in their odious faces."

The Daemon Prince was clearly thrilled by his coveted answer, but he did well to mask his true emotions behind a facade of seeming indifference. "Such temerity to bring defeat to your hated foes. Such vigour to please your God-Emperor! Of your traits and passions, that endless determination is what I approve of most," he nodded respectfully, earning only a disgusted look from his new companion, her view currently held on the ground. "And you are sure of this decision, yes?"

"I am," Anessa confirmed. Looking up to him, her glare of daggers hardened, as though letting the daemon know she was still his hateful enemy, and she pointed the head of the daemonhammer his way another time. "But know this: should you make any attempt to betray this promise, I will not hesitate to make an end for you. Even if it costs me an end of my own."

A look conveying suppressed excitement came over him. "We shall see," nodded he. "And I feel I should let you in on a secret before we traverse and leave these wastes. As you must know, not all things in the Warp are as they seem. I will say to you now that the sights you and I shall see in our travels will amaze, stupefy, and eternally perplex you. I've wandered the Immaterium itself for many a lifetime, and some of them still some bring only wonder and to an immortal being such as I."

Finishing his words with a throaty grunt, he turned around. The great blade in his hand began to fade away from the tip down until it fully vanished into thin air, leaving his palm empty. Making a single nod at her from over his shoulder, gesturing for her to follow him, the Daemon Prince began to walk off into his own direction in the forest with long, powerful steps, his wings still folded tightly over his back.

Sighing, Anessa began to walk his way, keeping her eyes trained upon his larger form the whole time. She started follow in a faster pace when she noticed the daemon was not holding up for her, still unable to rid her hearing of the clustered voices from the white woods. A question of her own began to form no sooner than it all began, and as the fifth minute of their commenced, she voiced it.

"What should I call you, daemon?" she asked, the distance she trailed behind him being a scant few feet. It was enough, she thought, as she would potentially have time to react to him if he were to try anything on her.

Glancing over his shoulder to Anessa again, the daemon grinned an ugly grin. "You may call me Be'lakor."


	3. Chapter 3: A Grim Display

Be'lakor found himself in a cheerful mood as this forever twilight in the fickle graces of the Warp progressed. The soil upon his cloven-clawed feet, treading gracefully upon the surface of the Formless Wastes, he walked on. He _did_ have wings that could bear him aloft and perhaps get him to his chosen destination faster than this. But walking was how he chose to travel for now.

After all, he had someone with whom to travel the Wastes alongside. Someone who lacked the power of flight, but the ability to trek as he did.

The Sister of Battle who now was grudgingly accompanying him was allowing the ancient daemon some amusement just by granting him her presence. With whatever belligerence, enmity, and mistrust she unquestionably felt his way, she kept it hidden with terrific competence beneath a sour, but stony expression. It was a look as rough in its current state as her dark armour.

Through the entire realspace equivalent of a day of walking they did she held even pace with him, saying not a thing. To him, anyhow. Every once in a while she would murmur a prayer or some other insignificant prattle of that kind under her breath, but that was it. She didn't even speak up to complain on the rough, ever-shifting terrain bearing such alien geometries and idiosyncrasies of this plane. Whatever manner of training she went through, it did well to jade her perception.

Perhaps a bit _too_ well.

For all her patient qualities, this wasn't the reason as to why Be'lakor's maw bore such a crooked grin now. He had typically known servants and slaves for mortal company, both human and alien in origin; they were all either creatures that feared him, loved him, or else saw him as a god. Few, if any dared to stand against him or question his word. And it was not much of a surprise for the First-Damned, for most who did such a thing lived not much longer than inflating themselves on such a fatal act of boldness.

But this woman... she did not fear him. Be'lakor could feel it. Within her soul, burning so brightly, was faith, loyalty, courage, and hatred most appealing that numbed her to such an emotion. She was not some ordinary dullard subjected to his will, nor a broken soul, or even a totally mindless zealot as her breed were most commonly painted as. She was a creature of near single-minded convictions and blinding fury, with just enough cunning in her brain to steer her the way of more pragmatic solutions. And she was his _enemy_. An enemy that would take earnest delight in destroying him utterly, if she had that chance.

Alas, she did not have such a thing. She chose preserving her existence and possible escape from this hellish realm over foolishly giving her life to him in a gesture as blatantly vain as could be fathomed from a human standpoint. It was that one, simple fact that still nibbled at Be'lakor. Like the teeth of a rodent feeding upon malt, gnawing relentlessly...

Aside from the Aether's instability, Be'lakor had felt that there was an indubitable sense of peace settling between him and the warrioress over the past few hours, as uneasy as it was. This proved itself to be the catalyst that engendered him the urge to end it. After all, being the creature he was, he so dearly did love to curdle the air into something else when it became a tad too... _still_ for his liking.

Be'lakor slowly turned his head the way of the Sister of Battle, no longer wishing to content his view of her with corner of the eye glances. Detecting the motion, she looked up to him and met his piercing red eyes without so much as a wince. Just from her stiff-browed look alone Be'lakor knew that she had realized he was about to speak. If to just to pester her further he let his mouth curl in a clearly devious motion, foully grinning all the while leading into the looming conversation.

"Do you have a name?" came his question at long last, just as her lips were curling into a grimace. Compared to the queer, chaotic ambiance surrounding them wherever they wandered, the sound of the daemon's deep, smooth voice was like a surgical insertion of something actually lucid - however _vaguely_ lucid it was. "After all, I have given you mine. Politeness would be appreciated, my newest companion." He said again. "Well... that, and I would dearly like to know it, given the little time that is likely to transpire between us before the occurrence of whatever outcome fate has provided us."

The Battle-Sister seemed unwilling to reply, merely turning her head and eyes forward. Be'lakor's grin devolving into a simple smirk, he turned to the shapeless road ahead of himself as well.

He knew she was going to speak eventually. He could feel that human need of social stimulation; she gave it off like a fetid miasma. For all of that faith she clung to, her ability to keep solely to her lonely self could only go on for so long before it faltered. And, in the small case she was not up to the task of humouring him, Be'lakor would just have to content himself with her frustrated visage.

Lo and behold, she did end up answering him. And the look on her face, still focused on another direction, was a deliciously bitter thing.

"My name is Anessa."

Be'lakor couldn't help himself in glancing back her way, the expected surprise of her response itself most inexplicably exciting for him.

"'Anessa?' A pretty name," he complimented, nodding as his wings took a second to adjust in their reclined position on his back. "A fitting name as well, for one so concerned with preserving what you see as purity..."

Be'lakor could have just ended it there, but he wanted to lengthen the torment. Seconds later, he further remarked, "From what I have witnessed of you so far, I must admit that you are a bearer of much strength and skill. You showed off a fraction of what you surely are capable of when you attempted to best me. I wonder, what position do you hold in your order? It surely must be something of great importance."

Anessa did answer him, but not for a good while. It was after another spell of silence between the two came and went when he got it.

"I... _was_ the Sister Superior to my contingent. Before..." her voice trailing off, she turned to Be'lakor and tightened her grimace. He focused on every feature presented upon her visage of resentment, from her icy eyes, to her crinkled brows, to the dark _Fleur de Lys_ tattoo staining her right cheek like a black tear or droplet of spilt blood. Deliciously bitter indeed.

She finished in a snarl, "Before what _you_ did."

Be'lakor simply smirked again. The sheer, murderous hatred in her expression was as fragile as it was pure, and it was a look that tasted to the daemon like only the sweetest of ambrosiacs.

"It was not I who did that, my misguided companion," he cackled. "It was my followers who acted against your advance. They merely wished to preserve my beautiful and radiant glory against your swiftly encroaching forces who sought only to snuff that out. It was a matter of self-defense, was it not?"

"We had little choice in the matter but to attack," Anessa spat back. "That world you had infected with your decaying touch was a world that rightfully belongs to the Imperium. We thought it still capable of purification, but it seems it proved beyond saving."

"So... it _was_ the fault your precious Imperium for that world's senseless destruction, is it? A world no longer theirs, and therefore nobody's. How wonderfully selfish."

"I did _not_ say that."

"But you _know_ that, yes?" Be'lakor's eyelids dropped to thin, red slits as he savoured Anessa's faintly kempt rage following her snap. "The fault lies with your actions, and the actions of those far above you in the chain of command. You and your dear sistren interfered with matters that were not your own and never were, and payed for such an unwarranted transgression with their lives. Is that not right?"

"We could not stand by as your wretched will ran that planet to its most corrupt core," was her next retort. "To observe that unspeakable occurrence happening is an abomination in the eyes of the Emperor. The larger crime would have been to just watch and do nothing. Would it not have been?"

Be'lakor gave a sardonic look. He appeared as though he was going to respond, but then, instead, he looked away, as though his attention had been snatched from Anessa. She could see his wry visage becoming somewhat somber, but she cared little for what new occurrence was going on after what he had already spoken.

"Speak, daemon," she grunted at him. Still nothing. Anessa was quick in losing her remaining patience.

"Answer me, damn you!"

Be'lakor's scarlet eyes finally returned to the Battle Sister. No sooner had he brought his face her way, the daemon halted in his stride. With the suddenness of the action, Anessa was brought to pause as well. She regarded him warily, sensing something was amiss beyond all of the other alien sensations persistently perturbing her senses in this mad realm.

Be'lakor hummed after a moment, and said, quite plainly, "I feel that we have just crossed into the territory of a daemon of some power. I can feel a hateful gaze transfixing itself over our heads. Whoever it is, they may take action any second now..."

Anessa blinked in realization. She looked to their surroundings—the forest of many-coloured stalagmites they had been passing through for hours now. The jagged shards of twitching rock were all jutting up from soil, numerous in number, now in possession of a much more insidious atmosphere to their perilous shapes. Her muscles tensed, the Battle-Sister waited for what was to come next, expecting above all a foe.

Then something happened. Not ten seconds Be'lakor's warning, a noise tore through the air. A voice. A hushed bellow.

 _"Who dares tread upon the territory of a servant of Khorne?"_ The whisper was loud and long, passing through the daemon and the human like a sudden gust of wind. _"Who dares invade my realm? None have ever done so uninvited and emerged unscathed. Speak now, or suffer my wrath. That is the decree of Kar'ghurath."_

As Anessa only watched and listened, Be'lakor's response to the demand was immediate.

"I dare," he said loudly, taking another step forward. His sword appeared in his once-empty hand, forming from the creeping shadow he gave off behind him before taking its wicked shape and solidifying. "And I am not here to invade, nor pervade. I am merely passing through, so I might reach the lands of our mutual lord. Leave me be, and I may just do the same."

Everything was still for a minute, but that minute eventually ended. Anessa could soon feel something approaching. She felt it in her guts. Her muscles stiffening, she lifted her hammer higher into her hands, ready for a fight.

Be'lakor only inhaled, his posture relaxed. His dark etherblade was now in his grasp, but it was not raised in either a defensive or offensive manner. Just held by his side and nothing more.

A single being materialized before them. It seemed like the shape had emerged from the field of pointed and upturned stone with the of a slithering snake; a task of near impossibility, given the utter size and bulk of this creature. But Anessa, already bracing her fears, knew better than to trust common sense and logic here, as this was the Immaterium; this was where impossibilities were a commonplace. As were the horrors held within.

What had come before them was a monstrous daemonic creature Anessa recognized—or, at the very least, assumed—was another Daemon Prince. And it was a daemon of Khorne, as it had announced prior, given the distinguishing markings it had on its body and gear.

Scaly skin as crimson as blood covered its lean and sinewy form. A tail, twice as long as it body, trailed behind it, snaking around as though it had a life of its own. Upon its hide was a mechanical set of blue armour of some sort, fused with its body and showing off as what Anessa recognized in an instant as severely deformed and warped pieces of an older pattern of Adeptus Astartes power armour. The final thing of notice belonging to this beast was its head—a flat-nosed and wrinkled face of fangs and tusks that seemed to be set in a permanent snarl. Two thick ox-like horns curling downward from either side of its crown, they stopped just before touching the pointed chin, both coloured of bleached bone.

As Be'lakor had anticipated, it was a great daemon indeed, standing nearly twice as tall as he. In its long-fingered hands was the black shaft of an enormous greataxe, its silver blade on the end portraying the animated visage of a seething daemon gnashing its metallic teeth together, begging to be fed blood.

The creature looked at Be'lakor with that snarling pug face. Smoke hissed out from its nostrils like an absurd depiction of a bull preparing to charge. Anessa was sure that was about to occur, in fact, but she found herself surprised when the creature began to speak instead.

"I am Kar'ghurath," he started, his heavy, growling breath carrying the thick, musty stench of gore with it, "and I do not appreciate the uninvited. Who are you to traverse my territory, fool? I am a child of Khorne, and I cherish the names of my foes before I slaughter them and send their blood flowing to his domain."

"I am Be'lakor," Be'lakor said back, giving no ground to the towering fiend, much less showing even an ounce of intimidation. "And I am more so a child of the Lord of Skulls than you shall ever be. I am the First-Damned. The Dark Master. The first, and most prized and beloved son of all the gods, and conqueror of countless worlds. I am the Chosen of Chaos who ascended to their most desired graces before any other. And you are now in my way, insignificant whelp."

Anessa held her breath at that statement, both realizing its gravity when put against the situation at hand, and just what he meant by those words. She kept holding it when the fellow Daemon Prince's expression curled into a most hideous and angry visage (well, more so than it was now). But still Be'lakor continued on.

"I would so gleefully take my time flaying the flesh from your bones for merely staining my sight with your feeble and unworthy presence, much more so to _deign_ to call yourself a champion of Khorne. But that time is of the essence for me. All I wish is to pass through here and continue on with my journey. Slink back to whatever fortress of cowards' blood and excrement you have carved out for yourself in these wastes, and I will ignore you for now as you should ignore us."

Her tense eyes now widening in surprise and sudden realization at this immense and arrogant boast, Anessa heard Be'lakor as well as the opposing daemon. To which this brutish fiend, Kar'ghurath, his tail thrashing about against rock and dirt behind with the likeness of an unfurled whip being lashed about, almost immediately snarled with utmost savagery, "You would give... _me_ orders? You? _You?!_ "

From the change of stance the Khornate Daemon Prince now held, it was abundantly clear that these words of warning had infuriated Kar'ghurath incredibly, as his voice had risen to a shrill, wrathful screech. The crimson-skinned being turned to the still-reeling Anessa with its enraged look only growing that much larger as it witnessed her. Soon thereafter he pointed a long, slim, coal-black claw her way as his head went back to the one who had earned his ire.

"You believe yourself in position to give _me_ orders, weakling? You who carries around mortal filth through this realm? Why does she bear symbols of the Corpse Emperor?"

Anessa was prepared to speak her mind, but Be'lakor motioned his free hand her way, successfully gesturing for her to let him continue speaking. He then walked several paces forward to his latest adversary and did just that.

"Those who follow me, and why they do, are none of your concern," he replied for her, his tone much lower than before, but still perturbingly serene. His other hand held his etherblade in a slacked grip. Slacked, yes, but not unready for a confrontation. "Let us pass. I shall not ask again."

Kar'ghurath only sneered arrogantly, grasping the shaft of his axe tightly. _"Witness my answer!"_ he boomed, lifting his possessed weapon far overhead, and striking it forth.

The weapon itself howled as it descended, the daemonic face etched upon it performing the ear-ringing sound. It came down with an unearthly fury, certain to reek untold carnage upon whatever creature it hit, be it daemon of otherwise.

It did hit something, but it wasn't anything sentient. In a pace faster than could be fathomed from an ordinary human's perception, Be'lakor was already striding forth to meet his adversary. As his comparatively smaller body moved in honed reaction to the coming blow of his fellow daemon's axe, he swung his Blade of Shadows with tranquil fury and deadly desire.

But impact against each other in a mighty display of strength and hissing sparks, the two weapons did not.

Be'lakor's sword flared in and out of unreality in a instant, phasing through the axe completely as though it was not even there to intercept it to begin with. The axe of the Khornate daemon impacted against the twisted soil below with a geyser of speckled dirt and bits of rock, harmlessly passing Be'lakor as he sidestepped it with incredible ease.

Be'lakor finished his strike. His own weapon had completed its ascent, cleaving diagonally through his foe neatly from side to shoulder. Just like the axe, the armour of Kar'ghurath was all ignored by the dreaded blade. The flesh, however, was not so fortunate.

By the time the soil that had been shaken up from Kar'ghurath's strike had settled once again, Be'lakor was far behind him. His sword still held high and form knelt as he halted his own momentum. His wings had flashed out for that brief moment of movement, but were again folded against his back.

Anessa had taken several shocked steps back as the fight started, and saw all that had happened. In a single bound that came and went quicker than she could blink, Be'lakor was reduced to a pallid blur that streaked from here to there before gaining form again. What hit her next was that this skirmish had started and ended in the span of three heartbeats.

The bestial Kar'ghurath's tusked jaw dropped in that instant, a cloud of crimson-hued steam hissing forth from his maw alongside a disbelieving gasp. A line forming across the upper portion of his body, starting from the entry point of the etherblade and ending where it exited him, it became more pronounced as blood, a darker shade of crimson than his skin, seeped forth from the wound and through the cracks in his armour. As the Khornate daemon could only continue croaking out choked breaths, the severed portion of its upper form slid and fell to the ground with a sickening sound. The rest of its body fell back and collapsed alongside it, spasming about without a brain to control it, all of its boiling blood spilling out in a great river and sizzling like grease like as the soil greedily absorbed it.

"Wh-what? Wha...? You..." was all he could gasp back, his golden eyes growing less bright and more dull. Still twitching hideously, the severed-off lower mass of Kar'ghurath slowly began to dissolve into a festering, steaming puddle of ichor whilst all that was left of his upper mass looked to Be'lakor, his decaying expression more confused now than anything. He gurgled on the flood of red that poured like a fountain from his fanged maw, failing in his attempt to move himself toward the departing Be'lakor with his remaining arm. He eventually stopped after a of the pathetic display, choosing then to remain still.

"My legs are... my legs... where are my legs...?" he whimpered, looking around with his dimming eyes as though only now realizing his predicament. "Where are my... legs? Where... where...?"

As the daemon's ongoing puling and gasping became steadily weaker, Be'lakor had walked up to the still stunned Anessa, his blade shimmering for a moment before fading from his grasp as though it was never there to begin with. When the Sister looked up to Be'lakor she could see that his expression, in total contrary of her own, was something of utterly disconcerting mirth.

"Shall we leave?" he smirked at her with a purr, self-satisfaction dripping in his smug tone. He didn't wait for an answer, as he strutted off in that same moment, venturing forth on the path they had been taking before this interruption of their journey.

Before deciding upon anything, Anessa's view was thrust back to the defeated daemon. The way it tried to move about still was a strange thing to behold; it was not truly dead, but surely wounded in some way that would take an ungodly amount of time to recover from. Perhaps it was, somehow, dying, and these were his death throes. Anessa knew not the foggiest clue of what she should believe in, and she didn't bother to make too hard of an attempt to, as it was but one of many questions now swarming over her.

The fallen daemon was still weakly vocalizing its predicament as the sounds of Be'lakor sauntering away became more apparent to the Battle-Sister. Anessa stared at the fiend for a moment longer before lowering her hammer, realizing in that moment how tightly she had been gripping it throughout witnessing the short-lived spectacle. She turned around and started after Be'lakor, intent on not looking back at the eerie sight.

Anessa looked at Be'lakor as she caught up to him, the soles of her sabatons crunching rapidly over rock. She stared at him hard, his form outlined against the darkening lands standing before them. There was a thought circulating her mind; a thought that became a question she longed to ask, if only under the hopes that it would be enough to drown out the beast's cries behind them.

"I know enough of the origins of Daemon Princes," the Battle-Sister started, using a quiet and careful tone. "How they were once men of flesh and blood who committed heinous deeds in the names of the Chaos Gods. How they were granted the wretched existence of daemonhood as a final 'reward'. And before you engaged that daemon, you claimed to be the... first such creature, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes, I did say that, my astute companion," Be'lakor admitted this with his horned head held high, his voice most proud. "I was the first mortal to have been elevated to my current stature by the Ruinous Powers. I am Be'lakor First-Damned. I am the first, true child of the gods. Their _only_ true child. It is a truth no other Daemon Prince can claim as their own, and it is a position I cherish."

 _"'Truth'?"_ Anessa's brow crinkled at this, her face still looking up to him as they spoke to one another. "To to the sheer, monumental wretchedness of such an incredulous claim, I believe you to be a liar."

Chuckling once, Be'lakor closed his eyes and flicked his wrist dismissively. "Believe what you will; I shan't care for your opinion, human."

Finding no reason to continue this unwanted conversation, Anessa fell quiet. She gave Be'lakor a final glance before turning her attention to the road, trying to ignore the whines of what was left of Kar'gurath. The whimpers of the felled daemon grew ever fainter the further they traveled, as she noticed with a sigh of relief. Soon enough did they grow silent, the mewls faded from sound, becoming naught more than a distant memory to her.

As well for Be'lakor, he found comfort in halting his pestering of Anessa, preferring to use it to reflect. As silence returned between them, he started to think. His foremost thought, so naked as it was, was about how he had so recklessly revealed to his identity to the Battle-Sister.

The Dark Master had spent much of his existence as a daemon carefully concealing evidence of his presence and identity in the records of time from the hands of men. Not even their greatest daemon hunters had a grasp of who, or even _what_ he was. From his now-ancient beginnings, to the complete obliteration of the remnants of his latest conquest, all he had done was carefully move the pieces around in the game of fate to his benefit alone and cover his trail. He was a shadow upon their walls; a dark apparition, ever elusive, ever intangible to their advances, and always out of reach.

And now, this humble creature of mortal origin he had allowed to accompany him had been given a glimpse of the figure behind the shadow. She stated she did not believe him, and perhaps that was an honest statement then, but the Daemon Prince knew she would come around to the truth eventually. This little fact didn't trouble Be'lakor in the slightest, for he knew that even if she chose to accept his word, she had a paltry chance of actually surviving to tell others about it. Whether by blade or tooth or claw or magic, she was surely destined to perish in this realm of unreality and havoc. And when she did, his secret would die with her, again lost to all but himself and the gods he served.

And yet, as he walked beside her now, still silently reveling in the ecstasy of his latest slaying of another pretender who foolishly sought to rob him of his status as the true Champion of Chaos, Be'lakor felt something queer enter his mind and body. It stirred with a life of its own within the knotted strands and abyssal folds of his black heart. Yes, he could feel it deep within him. A wish. A wish that this stubborn, accursed, holy soldier of an Imperium he loathed so greatly, this "Sister of Battle", this "Anessa", would, somehow, prevail against these unfathomably monumental odds. They were stacked against her at every angle, waiting to fall and crush her to a mess of broken pulp beneath their massive girth. But she had a tenacity all her own to use as a bulwark. A gift that grew past any favour of her dear false Emperor. A treasure that was all her own. A will to live.

Maybe, just maybe, that will would take her somewhere other than her death. Serve as a muse that would inspire her to smite every foe she came against and utterly bring to heel every obstacle that sought to hinder her. Crush the opposition with merciless power. Shatter the board of the game she was but a simple a pawn in since before she was born. Defy fate. Forge a path of destiny with her own bare hands.

Be'lakor grinned again, spying the Battle-Sister's fair, armored shape from the corner of his spiteful vision. Anessa, with valuable tools at her disposal and a spirit within even the First-Damned found himself wanting to taste, was a strong character. Ever so often did strength falter, but then again, ever so often did it prevail.

Yes... Yes, this twee little adventure he formulated would shape itself into something most gratifying by its conclusion. With a potent, if mercurial level of intuitive foresight being among the numerous blessings he had received from his masters, Be'lakor could sense that much held in store for them both.

How he starved himself thinking of what this journey would become. How it tickled his mind relentlessly in suspecting how it would conclude...


	4. Chapter 4: Pressing Onward

The journey of Anessa and Be'lakor through the blasted hellscape continued onward. And what a solemn affair it was again becoming.

In the hours following the incident with the Khornate Daemon Prince and its summary defeat at Be'lakor's sword, silence became the ruling occurrence between the two. Things had calmed quite a bit. At least, that was what Anessa chose to think, disregarding the lack of calmness in what surrounded her and the daemon she reluctantly followed.

What happened about them was simple Chaos. Chaos that, as much as the sororita wished to deny it, was showing the initial shades of growing dullness on her eyes in spite of its sinister and alien aspects. A great, swirling vortex of blue flame, its distant features looking queerly physical instead of intangible as fire should be, drifted on the prismatic horizon. It was a departing cyclone of massive proportions, slowly and soundlessly ambling by as deformed chunks of rock and debris orbited upon its current. Great spheres, each one riddled with spines that constantly grew and shortened to degrees both simple and extraordinary, meandered by on fell winds in abundant clusters, absorbing their lesser kin into their beings if they bore the hapless luck of blindly bumping into them. A river of tar could be heard bubbling miles away, or however long a mile in the Immaterium constituted as. A host of disembodied voices occasionally whispered into Anessa's ear, speaking things too quiet and jumbled together to actually make sense of.

Barring those voices, what area of this daemonic no man's land Anessa and Be'lakor had strayed into, far from the features in the distance, was much more unremarkable in appearance by comparison. Just a long, winding route that all but carved itself into a traversable path the further on it they walked. If there was anything that blocked or would otherwise hinder their path a short ways ahead of them, such objects would collapse and mould itself into another piece of the path. It was as if the unreality was transforming into something actually viable for mortal footing, shifting in appearance and mass just to accommodate her.

Anessa had an idea that Be'lakor was using his mental powers to accomplish this, but wasn't completely certain. For all she knew, it was her own mind unconsciously performing the feat. If she knew any secret of the Immaterium, it's that the very foundations of it were built upon emotions, dreams and stray thought, however twisted they became. And she wanted more than anything to return from whence she came.

What many an obstruction were forced into becoming was just another addition of the ground itself. The terrain of this road was flat, its soil made up not of dirt, but thousands of crystalline fractals, all arrayed in fine patterns that were disrupted only by footfall. Their colours ranged from ruby red to dull pink, but all were of the varying range of crimson. Their sizes were numerous, but the vast majority were comparable to peas.

A small murder of furies were following the pair as they made their way through this stretch of the Formless Wastes, circling high above on their leathery wings with the likeness of vultures. They dared not approach the ground where the targets of their attention dwelt. Whether they were the same winged fiends that survived their prior attack on Anessa and became learned of her skill in hand to hand combat, or were just intimidated by the shape of Be'lakor astride beside her, it wasn't hard to discern why they chose to spy from such a lofty position.

The Battle-Sister's stride was composed and ever-wary; her concerns were not aimed too greatly at the furies, but at everything else that this mad realm might hold. She marched in militant fashion, always checking her gear and weapons when she had a chance. For all her caution, her feet noisily crunched over the brittle, pink crystals that littered the abyssal walkway like large grains of scarlet sand.

Be'lakor, on the other hand, made not a sound.

Though his legs moved in tandem with Anessa's own, and though his cloven-clawed feet touched tainted soil as solidly as hers did, the warrior nun couldn't help but realize that he, with his utmost and ethereal grace, seemed to glide instead of physically tread over the terrain. Not even the armoured mail he wore over his waist, nor the skulls that hung from the chains piercing his wings like macabre pieces of jewelry so much as rattled with his unnaturally swift, always precise movements. Anessa may have easily assumed that this supposedly 'First-Damned' creature that strode forth alongside her was a creature of living, ethereal shadow more so than the cruel and prideful daemon she had forged this perilously fragile alliance with, had the situations upon which they first met been more furtive and less straightforward. He certainly acted like one; if she didn't hold her eyes upon him for so long, there was a possibility that she wouldn't even notice his presence.

Such a lack of care never came to pass. Anessa had kept the majority of her view trained on him since his slaying of that fellow Daemon Prince some hours prior. He sometimes looked to her as well, but each time was nothing more than a brief glance, the sort one makes in making sure the other was still closely following. With these multiple glimpses, Anessa had noticed, with growing suspicion, that his expressions had slowly, but surely transformed into something more weighty in their overall nature. His brows had lowered over his ruby eyes, his proud grin now gone and replaced with a small frown of contemplation. Every time he shifted his view over his shoulder she saw it.

There was something he was anticipating, and it was most likely something grim. That much Anessa assumed. That much she chose to believe. Suspecting some new threat was due to arrive, perhaps hours from now or even around the very next corner, was uncomfortable. It was the sort of chafing curiosity and lurking dread that ate at her.

Even so, her thoughts of what was to come were interrupted by simple phrase.

"I can hear your stomach rumbling."

The sound of Be'lakor's chiding voice cutting through the otherwise still air drove Anessa to halt. Realizing it was him who said it, she found only befuddlement in his words.

"What?"

"That's the tenth time now that I have had to listen to those acids in your belly churn around and grumble out their want for food." He stopped with her and turned around, showing another frown. "It is beginning to annoy me."

Sitting on his claim, Anessa thought for a moment. Only now did she realize that there was a newer sensation biting at her. Not the paranoid ache of dwelling on what manner of horror this realm was and how she came upon this predicament, but that of gnawing hunger. A pain any mortal, feeble or not, could experience.

"I suppose I do feel something resembling the pangs of hunger," the sororita said, huffing just-so. "But to hear that is a sound you will have to endure, daemon."

"If it is an issue for you as well, then perhaps I could remedy your little plight, if you wish."

Eyes squinting suspiciously, her head tilted slightly, armoured knuckle propped on armoured hip. "How so?"

"Oh, warrioress, I have powers to manipulate more than just the energies of the Warp around us for your sake. I, too, have the capability to instill certain forms of life in the lifeless. One of my patrons taught me such a power."

While saying this, Be'lakor knelt down, his long tail wrapping around his feet. He touched the pulsating, crystalline ground with the palm of his hand, holding it there for a second before removing it. Nothing happened for several seconds, but then, something did occur. There, budding up from the daemonic soil where his palm lay not a few moments prior, was a... _plant._ A thin, green stalk. Anessa blinked thrice, perplexed by what was happening.

Be'lakor's fanged maw curved into a smile at the incredulous look he was receiving, but kept the rest of his focus on the task he was performing. The plant grew slowly but surely over the course of a minute, obeying the silent will of its dark master. The green sprout soon became like that of a sapling, which then sprouted branches. From there it grew and grew, until brown bark covered its now-thick trunk and bright green leaves adorned its mighty arms.

The furies still circling above emitting their loathsome squawks and screeches, Be'lakor approached one of the branches of his tree. From a stem protruding from its tip, a round object of green texture was produced. The orb gained a red complexion as its girth increased, and when it matured until it could grow no more, it fell from the branch into Be'lakor's waiting hand with a light sound. When he had it, he looked from the fruit to his companion.

"Here." He tossed Anessa the orb, slow enough in his underhanded pitch to allow even one with a sluggish reaction speed to catch it. "Eat this."

Anessa did catch it in one hand, and stared intently at what object of dubious making she now held. It looked like an apple, that much she was certain of; a ripened apple with a polished red surface. Dare she say, it looked like a _real_ apple, grown from material space.

But this was not material space. And this was surely no normal apple. Keeping that image at the fore of her mind, Anessa's skeptical view was cast back at Be'lakor. She didn't trust the fiend, much less believe in the verisimilitude of this trick he performed for a second.

"Why should I even think to put this in my mouth?"

"Because it is genuine," implored Be'lakor. He folded his arms, their thick muscle almost covering the foul star marked on his chest. "I've gone this far with you without breaking my word or bringing you to harm. Please, just take what I have offered you. Before you keel over and _beg_ for something to fill that mortal void you call simple hunger, or else succumb to it."

Anessa glanced again at the apple, and Be'lakor again spoke. "This fruit is of a quality greater in nutrients than anything you could ever hope to wrap your tongue around where you hail from. It will provide you with bountiful energy, I assure you. Energy, lest my memory fails me, is something one of a more... _physical_ mindset needs to complete goals with greater fluency, yes?"

As much as she wanted to argue with the daemon, Anessa could find no reasonable way to do so without repeating herself. She regarded what Be'lakor had said to her, not entirely trusting him, but finding little reason to continue thinking that he was attempting to poison her. Sighing, she looked back to the apple in her hand, unable to help herself and its tantalizing texture. After a moment longer of intensely staring at it, she brought the fruit to her mouth and took a large, crisp bite. Her white teeth puncturing its crimson flesh with ease. Transparent juices streamed from her lips and down her chin as she chewed. Immediate was her realization of what she was eating as soon as it touched her tongue.

It tasted... sweet. It tasted like a real fruit of the design it matched. Yes, it tasted good, for what "good" was worth. It tasted familiar and earthly. Cool, sugary and fresh.

She crunched what she had in her mouth again, her expression going back to sour.

It tasted like an apple.

"Hmph." Swallowing the pulp in her mouth, Anessa wiped the juice staining her chin and took another good bite of the crimson orb. When that mouthful, too, was rendered as mush and devoured, she took yet another.

Seeing her gnawing the fruit down to its core, Be'lakor looked back to his tree. He formed and plucked another apple from the same branch that had spawned the one he gave to Anessa. He held it close to his face, admiring his distorted reflection on its surface.

He told her mirthfully, "Should you hunger for more than one simple apple, you shall have it. Should you wish for drink, you shall have it. And, my companion, I'll have you know that my power is not limited to fare of this simple variety."

Halfway into his explanation, Anessa was raising a hand to halt his speech. "I need no water. And one apple is enough."

"Oh, really?" Be'lakor's brow lowered inquisitively. "Just one, little apple is enough to curb your appetite and satisfy your thirst?"

"Yes."

"Truly? For all of its value, it seems like so paltry a meal..."

Tossing the core away, Anessa's face showed off a hard glare of annoyance, terrifically stubborn as it was. "I said yes."

"Hmm..." Be'lakor gave a mighty frown. He cast a baleful look at the apple in his hand. "Pity."

Still firmly in his grasp, the apple began to shrivel. It shrunk and softened, as if it was being beset by a searing heat or the ravages of time that had been set on a faster course. As it collapsed in on itself and crumbled to dust that then flowed through his fingers in streams, the great tree he had created, too, began to wither and rot. As its leaves fell from skeletal branches and blew away on the ethereal wind, the tree itself creaked and moaned loudly with the likeness of a great beast in pain. Its wide trunk thinned and contorted in a haggard fashion, its brown bark turning grey and brittle, falling off in clumps and patches like scales being shed from a molting lizard. When it had finally buckled under the pressure of rapid age and became naught but a pile of ash that spread out over the ground, Be'lakor smiled crookedly.

"If that is your wish, I'll not delve further." He kept his rictus grin on his companion, as though prying for a reaction to the scene of decay from her. Needless to say, with the Battle-Sister's face staying rigid as stone, he didn't succeed. Silently exhaling, the sound itself almost like that of an admittance of defeat, his stare only broke when he turned around. As he started walking, his stride as eerily silent as before, Anessa was already following him, though now with something akin to a filled stomach.

She didn't thank him for the meal, but the daemon seemed more than pleased by just witnessing her eat what he provided for her. Anessa took immediate notice of this. Resentment for accepting his offer started burning a brand of shame into her head. For its vile intensity, it subsided soon enough, allowing her mind to think clearly again without the anchor of rage at what she knew was so insignificant a gesture to hinder her thought. Her faith would protect her from any real temptations this fiend tried to show her. And to fall from grace and purity from accepting and eating an _apple,_ of all things... absurd.

The game this Daemon Prince was playing, for the short time it had lasted thus far, was quickly becoming a convoluted thing. One aspect of it over all the others that niggled at her was that he seemed so sickeningly _sincere_ with many of his words and worries. Indeed, he made that halfhearted truce with her, brought ruin to another daemon of malevolent intentions, and gave her something of nourishment to keep her going. But, in the end, there was really no telling with his kind. Daemons are the stuff of Chaos' most raw aspects. Be'lakor's breed could only ever see her kind as insignificant playthings, worth only a good laugh wrought by deceptions and the suffering that follows them. Toys for amusement, fit for being strung along by their cruel hands and the antics that fueled them until broken.

Anessa would not be this creature's newest bauble to torment. If she found any sort of intention on his part to betray her, go back on his deal or find a loophole to exploit in it, her vengeance would be swift. She would have to hold all of his assurances and offerings under the closest of scrutiny. To find any small grain's worth of truth in a single thing he said would be difficult.

For she knew, more than anything, was that only a fool among fools would ever blindly trust the words of a daemon.


	5. Chapter 5: The Blood God's Domain

When Anessa began to realize she was starting to grow weary of traveling, it came at her in but a single moment of clarity both sudden and startling. Only now did she feel that her firm legs were almost trembling within the ceramite that housed them, wracked with the sluggish and sore ache of a budding sense of exhaustion. It was barely a hindrance, as she still marched without stumble or stagger in her stride, but it was still noticeable; by her, and surely by Be'lakor.

While she had no earthly way of truly knowing this, she believed it to be two days since she was thrown into the Immaterium and forced to confederate with the Daemon Prince who brought this horrid turn of events into fruition to begin with. At the very least, it had to have been two days. Without so much as bothering to question Be'lakor, her hatred keeping her from warranting the advice of the matter on so wretched a thing, she resorted to one method. Her memory.

As both an apprentice and active soldier for the Adepta Sororitas, she had trained endlessly with her sistren. The tasks they endured were meant to chisel the body into a perfect vessel for delivering the Emperor's will. It was all in preparation for doing combat against His foes; even just to handle the sacred items and artifacts needed to do so, be they purifying weapon or blessed armour, one required a level of strength and fortitude not found in the average human. Anessa, as with any other Battle-Sister hopefuls, was pushed mercilessly through trials both taxing and onerous to an oppressive degree and came out of them as something great and proud. In one of the more mild tests of character, she would be sent out to march for days upon end, treading upon ground for miles and miles in a perfect line that never broke form next to her fellow sororitas. After the two-day mark came upon her the last time she was sent out to march in full power armour, chanting verses and passages from the _Lectitio Divinitatus_ , the same, sacred tome she still carried by her side even now on iron chain, this was what her legs felt like. While there was no way to perceive time's passing in a dimension where time did not exist, she had this knowledge to go by, and she trusted it wholly.

Her estimation on time was not all that had grabbed her recent thought. No longer was the very land parting to make way for the two travelers, and no longer was it forming into a series of mad, ever-shifting geometries. The landscape had started to gain a constant aspect to it; this was a place with a floor of dark and red rock, each stone appearing brittle, flat and reflective as obsidian, as though seamlessly cut by blade and knife into looking so. Far above them was a dark sky, with clouds made up of the fumes of scarlet smoke that surrounded them.

But just because things had become more stable and less utterly alien at its most base value didn't mean it was becoming more inviting of a location. It was anything but. The further through this land of dark rock and mistlike smoke they traveled, the greater the heat began to grow, and the more present a metallic stench became. It filled the air on these uncomfortably warm currents, soon becoming as great as the smoke itself. It was the smell of fresh gore and spilled blood. It was nearly like the stink left off by that Khornate Daemon Prince Be'lakor slaughtered, but stronger. Much stronger. Thicker, too.

The smell crawled over Anessa at a sauntering, insidious pace until it was all that filled her senses. Without a solid grip on this scent, an ordinary person would have succumbed to the stench after a few moments, keeled over and lost themselves to the dizzying effects of nauseousness, or worse.

But the Sisters of Battle were not ordinary people.

Her head held high and unmoving, Anessa ventured on beside the daemon. She bore the musty fetor with the visage of one who appreciated its company, but that was not to say she actually found it appealing. She detested it as much as any sane person did, but Anessa had spilled her fair share in the past. She was used to it. She would bear it.

And bear it all is what she did. The smell, the heat, and then an uncomfortably loud noise as well. It was a crackling sound, from somewhere far away, and it was accompanied by a dense rumble. Blinking as it made its presence known, Anessa first thought it was thunder, only to suspect something far less simple was at play. Steadily did she realize that it sounded too... _organic_ , to truly be such a thing as thunder. Anessa plotted then to use this sound as the newest conduit of her focus, when her head snapped the way of the daemon she followed, sensing a new bit of movement from him—or, as it turned out to be, a lack thereof.

Be'lakor had stopped. His movement had paused on their trail's edge. Approaching his side, Anessa could see that the smoke in front of him was concealing a cliff he was now overlooking. A grating hum like that of two slabs of metal rubbing together forming in his throat, he propped his claws upon his hips, inhaling deeply of the smoke and ichor. To him it was the spicy scent of a field of flowers in full springtime bloom. His nostrils flared briefly as they exhaled, excitement flashing upon his face. "As you surely must have realized, my zealous friend, we have left the Formless Wastes. For now, of course..."

Another cracking sound in the distance, still hidden. Another low and rumbling roar filled the air with its hideous sound. "If that is indeed so, then where are we now?" she queried in return, suspecting one idea, but hoping it was not the case most dearly.

"We have arrived at the Domain of Blood and Brass. The lands of Khorne," confirmed Be'lakor, much to Anessa's immediate chagrin. Her head spun his way, and she said, "The realm of the Blood God? This is where you have taken me?"

"It lays between us and our mutual destination." His sideways glance was aimed with all the manners of a small, frank shrug. "It is but one of several such obstacles that sit in our way. You will have to endure them all, I'm afraid."

Biting her lip, Anessa went quiet. The daemon turned from the steep ledge started onward again, back on the path he had briefly stepped off of. And so Anessa started on with him once more, the pressing heat and scent of gore becoming that much thicker to her.

Their path took an upwards direction, becoming steeper with every step. Reaching the summit soon enough and seeing that no obscuring smoke was before it, Anessa paused and looked out to the world. She could see far. She could see this new land as it lay before her. She could see it, in all of its unholy glory.

The domain of the Blood God was a vast world teeming with entities of rampant slaughter. It was a cracked land. A blistered land. A land where the reeking stench of murder and carnage filled the air as wantonly as oxygen. Erected fetishes displaying Khorne's eternally bleeding sigil and great towers of blood and brass littered the shattered landscape, which itself was a long, flat plain marred into blackness and flame by the horrors of conflict. Scarlet smoke of vile industry billowed from those spires and filled the sky with its foreboding red clouds. Running, screaming, and almost prancing about on the dark terrain below, herds and groups of small figures moved and marched, their shapes all meshing together in chaotic unison as a colony of red ants swarming about their mound. Among their cries, they bellowed and chanted in unison, calling for war in a language that Anessa did not understand.

Treading amongst their smaller kin, the realm of Khorne was inhabited by fiends of monstrous proportions. Their shapes were enormous, ranging from building-sized to utterly mountainous. Bat-like wings, the fleshy folds holding them together as black as pitch, emerged from their maned backs. Held in their clawed grasps were mighty weapons of two simple varieties; terrible axes and long, barbed whips. These were the nightmarish Bloodthirsters no doubt; the greater daemons of Khorne and the embodiment of his unending rage. Their mighty whips being cast out and throaty bellows exhaling from their fanged maws were the source of the thunder she had been hearing.

One object of notice this land possessed stuck out more so than anything else it had to show. In the center of it, easy to see as a light in darkness, there lay the clear shape of an almost impossibly titanic citadel. Its foundations were built upon walls and spires of brazen brass, its geometries were jagged and fearsome, and its treacherous tower reached well past the heavens. Its walls in turn went and stretched as far as her human view could see, and most likely beyond.

Anessa was torn from her sightseeing when she remembered that Be'lakor hadn't stopped as she had. She looked back at him just in time to see the Daemon Prince silently walking off without her, down the other side of the summit.

Not wanting to be left behind, she hurriedly sprinted back on her weary feet to a more comfortable distance to Be'lakor, though not before taking one last glance at this clear view, while it presented itself. Her mind was only now beginning to feel as sore as her legs.

The Blood God's Domain. Of _course,_ it _had_ to be the Blood God's Domain...

* * *

Time had passed and Anessa's fatigue had grown only slightly. The heat was strong, and she couldn't find herself adapting to its pressure, but she endured it well enough. As well did she endure the sense of corporeal enmity hovering all around her. Growls and grunts and squeals and noises she could not even properly describe, save for being foul and coarse and hateful, came from this corner and the next.

The unpleasant sounds of the entities in the background, much like her concern at the moment, came, went, and came again. None, thankfully, showed themselves. It was as a longer stretch of silence finally settled itself that the Battle-Sister set her focus onto her companion.

Something of an eagerness had taken Be'lakor's stride, she concluded. She almost had to chase him down to keep up at some intervals. Finally he seemed to be slowing down. Anessa chose this moment to ask him a simple question about what she should expect from simply dwelling in this place for as long as they had been thus far. Sadly for Anessa, Be'lakor was the first to open his maw and begin speaking.

"Have you, by chance, heard of an ork, my dear?" he asked, curling his silver tongue around so amiably that any poor fool could think him a warm friend.

The sheer unexpectedness of this question, never mind the fact that shehad little thought of being asked a question herself, caught her off guard for a moment. Regaining her composure quickly, she finally replied with a faux-smile and an exaggeratedly congenial tone, "Oh, yes. I've heard of orks. The most barbaric race of xenos to roam the stars. I've never had the fortune of personally confronting one, but I have studied their brutish breed."

He smirked at this, showing his fangs. "Then have you, by chance, heard of the ork warlord known as Tuska, the 'Daemon-Killa?'"

"No. Who is he?"

"The only greenskin I ever chose to remember. He is an ork who openly lusted for the conflict my kind provided. In what I suppose was a gesture made to prove this, he collected an army of his kind and ventured head-first into the Eye of Terror to do just that: Kill daemons." Be'lakor failed to stifle a cackle, clearly in fond reverie. "Blazing as a green comet through the Eye, eventually, his merry band came upon a corrupted world of blood bent to the will of a Daemon Prince of high standing with Khorne. No sooner had they set foot on its crimson ground, the orks and daemons fought one another with reckless abandon and teeth bared."

Anessa tried to form the odd image of the xenos' antics in her head whilst Be'lakor went on regaling this tale. "Khorne watched the conflict unfold with a strong interest. He saw the orks and their leader slaughter many of his subjects. He saw the violence both sides craved, as two waves crashing against one another. The thrill of the battle shining in their beady, simple eyes. The rich blood that flowed from their weapons alone captivated him immensely."

Anessa blinked. "I... see." She blinked again. "What became of the creatures?"

Another hearty chuckle rumbled in Be'lakor's chest. "The orks were all killed by the night's end, though not before slaughtering multiple legions of the daemons who resisted their advance. The Daemon-Killa himself inflicted a grievous wound on the Daemon Prince before being cut down." There was a glistening glow of admiration, or perhaps envy, in his eyes. "Khorne witnessed what impressive carnage the bloodthirsty xenos had wrought upon their foes, the intoxicating hatred and greed for battle they held to their dying breaths, and he was pleased. So pleased that he personally brought up the remains of these orks into his hands, carried them into his realm, and revived them with his power."

Be'lakor cast his view out to the world and exhaled a mighty sigh, apparently peering out to something past the curtain of smoke. "Now, they reside within the shadows of the Blood God's Brass Citadel. They exist now to test their mettle against Khorne's daemons for all time. Dawn to dusk the orks fight, tooth and nail. When they inevitably fall come the day's conclusion, their spores take root in the blood-drenched soil. The next morning they rise once more from the warped earth, renewed and reinvigorated, to do it all over again."

He looked to Anessa, his smile almost cordial instead of biting and cruel. "Now, to most, it may seem like a hellish fate to suffer. But for these orks... it is a paradise."

He said nothing after this. His speech apparently done, Anessa thought to stew on this odd story he regaled, but did not think to it for long. No sooner had her attention abandoned him, she detected something that perturbed her greatly. From the back of her skull she instinctively felt a new presence become known. It was watching her. The hairs on her neck and arms, caged in armour, stood up at once. Feeling them, she knew it was genuine.

She looked up and saw what was troubling her senses right off. Instantly, dozens of meters away, she saw a creature. No, there was not one, but _several_ creatures. The fiends were abound. They lurked much closer than the fearsome devils lurking in the background, and it was clear as daylight that they had their rancorous attention held directly upon them.

These bestial things holding Anessa and Be'lakor in their sights watched with beady yellow eyes that showed through the smoke as sinister, gilded specks. Black lips curling back, white fangs were expressed like unsheathed sabers from their snarling maws. Anessa cursed under her breath, knowing of these things and the sort of threat they posed. Having had encounters with their summoned ilk in the past, she recognized of what sort of daemons they were right off—belligerent flesh hounds.

Bearing shapes ranging from man to cattle-sized, Khorne's flesh hounds were a type of beast more brutal and hate-filled than any horror spawned in the material plane. With small horns protruding from their heads, dark frills emerging in different formations from their thick necks, and hard, scaly hides as red as the blood they so wantonly craved, these fiends looked nothing like the innumerable breeds of canines humanity had long since domesticated. The only similarities they shared with common dogs, perhaps, were their ability and will to track down their prey—preferably being psykers in their case—until either it or they were brought low in the pursuit. That, and a fierce loyalty to their master and god.

One hound grew closer than the others. It emerged from the dark haze, making its presence known almost instantly. It was a great specimen, as large, if not larger in form as one of the fabled massive wolves of Fenris, and with three times the savagery in its hateful expression. Anessa immediately eyed it back as intently as it glared at her with its grimacing gargoyle face. Hungering in its eyes, both set so deep in their sockets, was a primal, animalistic lust for blood. A terrible need to kill. A desire to satiate its innate rage on a writhing victim, be it an able or helpless one. The Battle-Sister could see such a murderous desire well, but there was no blood she was willing to shed on its behalf.

The great beast emitted a snarl from its ebon maw as it looked upon Anessa. The frill sitting about its neck extended and flittered in a near-vibratory motion, showing off the brass collar it wore underneath between beats. With a sharp, upward turn, the bellowing was overtaken by a dense, coarse howl, so loud and rugged that it seemed like the constant restless crackling of the world around them was consumed in its cacophony. The cry that erupted from the daemonic beast's maw was the likes of which Anessa had never heard before. It made her body stiffen in reaction, not frightened or truly startled, but disturbed by the brazen pitch.

As the bloodcurdling call ended, and as the cruel ambiance returned, the hound snuffled once and turned around, walking away and out of sight of Anessa. The other hounds followed in their sibling's stride, receding back into the murky blackness from whence they first appeared. They all but melded into the ashen air after a few seconds, vanishing no sooner than had they appeared.

Her view still held on the spot, Anessa warily eyed the bestial daemons departing. Only after a minute had passed and she knew that they weren't about to be jumped by an ambush, her clenched muscles finally loosened and relaxed to a paltry degree. She looked up to Be'lakor, who, too, saw the creatures come and go good and well.

"As you may rightfully assume, Khorne is aware of our presence," he bluntly told her as he caught her querying look from the sharpest corner of his ruby eyes. "And he does not take kindly to those who would delve into his realm uninvited."

Anessa exhaled a deep breath. "One who is referred to as a god of bloodshed, wrath and blind, murderous hatred is bound not to take kindly to much, I would reason," she mumbled. A small smile came over her, though something so mirthful as happiness was the last thing it was made to express. "Oh, this ought to be something good..."

Be'lakor hummed. "Good? For _you?_ No, I think not. _Exciting_ , though..."

"Of course it would be something like you to find excitement in this, daemon..."

Be'lakor tsked. "I will have you know, my companion, that mighty Khorne is also a god of honour," he took the opportunity to inform her, with all the manner of a preacher dispensing an old, trite teaching to a recalcitrant child. "As well does he embody the dispensation of justice, as well as martial law. He despises cowards and oath-breakers, and commends the brave and dutiful. It simply is that those who do battle for any reason strengthen his domain."

"'...and all who fight and spill blood, whether up front on the field of battle or by a knife in the back, for one reason or another, serve him, willingly or not.' Yes, I am familiar with everything he stands for," she grunted dryly. It was abundantly clear that she cared as little for his lesson as she cared for Be'lakor personally. He cocked a brow, a speck of interest showing.

"How do you know of this, I wonder?"

Huffed Anessa, "When one lives the majority of their life cleansing the universe of those of heretical mindsets and values, such as I have done, we are bound to hear the innumerable cultists rave such words about him from time to time."

"You have indeed slain many in your Emperor's name?" questioned Be'lakor as he started forward again, once more treading the shattered path with unparalleled grace.

"Too many." Following beside him, Anessa's armoured feet crunched over the rock and brittle brush. Her daemonhammer was held at the ready once more, his words and those flesh hounds apparently having had an effect on her. Be'lakor took notice of her stance and wariness.

The Daemon Prince sniggered after his observation concluded. "Well, well, Anessa. If what you say is true, and I have little doubt as to that being so, Khorne may just find some reason to respect you..."

"Even so, he won't earn mine."

"No, I suppose he would not."

Be'lakor and Anessa found themselves falling quiet after this. And not five minutes (or however long the feeling of five minutes constituted as in the Warp) after their conversation came to its end and this respectable little bit of quiet came upon them, they were cut off from their path by a line of new figures dead ahead of them.

The beings she could see through the haze were queer and numerous. Their shapes were long and thin, but hunched and firm. Their heads were inhuman; the skulls unnaturally elongated and riddled with horns and spiked bone and brass protrusions of varying sizes. Some seemed to be dueling each other, shouting and rasping out twisted words that Anessa could not fully hear through the ambiance of slaughter. Many were focused on one another or the grim, blazing weapons they held, but most were staring at her. Staring like a pack of battle-starved beasts, longing to sink their misshapen teeth into the prey standing before them, only being held back by some thin, invisible force.

As Be'lakor looked on indifferently to the situation, Anessa soon figured what the cause of these daemons' hesitation was. Approaching from behind them, where more flesh hounds were also becoming known from, one figure resembling these bloodletters, but larger and brawnier in overall shape, traipsed forward in a noticeable limp. Some hounds trailing him spread out as he arrived, and some stayed by his side. Those ones had no choice but to.

In the clawed grip of his right hand, like those his kin were in possession of themselves, was a long, wicked hellblade—a daemonic weapon associated with only Khorne's daemonic footsoldiers, feared for its ability to cut through the thickest armour like nothing. The blade's surface was as black as obsidian and was illuminated by an outline of brazen flame. In its left hand were a series of chains, each one extending out to the collars of the four hounds that surrounded him, guiding him along the path like a hunter in search of his quarry. Anessa concluded that he truly was on the hunt and she was that quarry, as the daemon stopped and blazed a fearsome glare her way when it breached the smoke.

The hounds he held grumbled when he stopped, but made no move to break free of their holder's grip. Thereafter it extended his sword at her, rasping forth, "Stay your miserable legs, woman! You stand before the Houndmaster of Khorne! Halt in your stride and pay heed to my word!"

Its voice was a light and scratched thing, though also dense and throaty. It was the sound of a rusted blade grating itself against whetstone. It was a sound that matched such a demeanor the daemon showed; haggard, yet assuredly deadly.

Anessa shouted back, "What business have you with me, creature?"

Its reply was immediate. "I have been sent by Khorne. He felt you enter his lands and is most displeased, mortal thing of frailest bone and weakest flesh. Unworthy little thing!" The bloodletter let out a sharp hiss, the sound of steam exhaled from a burning kettle. His gaze was as scalding as the boiling liquid such an object would hold and as malefic and piercing as the end of his sword. All around him, the bloodletters hooted and hollered in agreement. The stray hounds lurking behind them joined in with snarls and bays and bellows. Said the large Houndmaster again, his black crown rising high, "You serve a power that is unwelcome here. A power that Khorne calls his enemy-"

"She is not here to warrant challenge to Khorne. Not on behalf of herself, or the enemy we both share," the voice of Be'lakor calmly interrupted, attracting the Houndmaster's furious attention. "This human is my companion. The responsibility of steering her from committing too severe an offense is _entirely_ mine."

" _Be'lakor._ " The Houndmaster greeted the Daemon Prince in a light voice reminiscent of a purr. He nodded his horned head in respectful motion, all while his needle-like fangs grew longer in their appearance, long enough so that they almost matched the tusks of his pets. "Most prodigal, yet proud son of the Four. Much time has past since you last passed through the Crimsonscape on your own admission, though you still serve our Father well. Many skulls lie at the foot of his throne, and much blood has flown into this domain due to your actions as of late. But great Khorne's intent rests not with you, glorious First-Damned." He turned next to Anessa, his face twisting that much further, from a hideous grin to a grotesque sneer of disturbingly inhuman proportions. "I have been driven forth from my post in the pens of my master's hounds to hunt a new quarry: your charge."

The Khornate daemon stuck its smouldering hellblade into the cracked earth for a few moments, only so that it could ball a free hand and thump it into his sinewy, scarlet chest. "The woman may not pass until either she cuts me down and proves herself worthy of treading these sacred lands, or her skull is taken for the Skull Throne!"

As the daemon's sentence ended and he reclaimed his foul weapon, his long, purple tongue flared from his mouth briefly. As the forked extremity finished flicking about its and returned from whence it came, his needle-teeth chattered noisily in the jaws that housed them. "Such is the demand of Khorne! Such is his price. And such will his payment be."

Anessa was about to look to Be'lakor, but full and well did she know why seeking any sort of aid from him was a pointless endeavor. She remembered Be'lakor's promise about the potential challenges she would face in their travels, and how he would be unable to participate in them. His face appeared rigid and waiting even now, and it was all too clear that he knew what she was thinking. Intimidating as the invitation this bloodletter had given was, Anessa showed no fear toward it. It was as she took her first step forward that Be'lakor looked to her darkly.

"Are you sure you know how to handle his type?" he questioned, a small, but noticed trace of what the Battle-Sister detected as concern in his voice. "This is no ordinary bloodletter—and a bloodletter alone is a challenge for many. This is one of Khorne's _heralds_ you stride forth to face. A fierce breed of warrior, even among daemons. Besters of many a mortal champion. Killers of countless beings who stepped forth to meet them or cowered at their approach. They are as sharp in motion and wit as a swing of their blades."

"I will take my chances, daemon," she only grunted, "and if I should fall, I would happily die at the talons of a roaring _thing_ as savage as this, defiantly facing it in the Emperor's name. His eyes are ever upon me."

"If you do end up perishing in the name of that lifeless corpse, just think of making your death look amusing above all other things, warrioress," he snorted puckishly. "I do not honestly know if your precious Emperor is nearly as omniscient as you think he is, but at least _I'll_ be the one assuredly watching it."

Anessa ignored his snide comment and the bellowing chuckle that followed it. She kept walking forward, keeping her view ahead of herself. The herald saw her approach with a spark resembling a dying cinder shining in its savage eyes, and that cinder quickly grew into a lively flame. As only ten meters came between him and his newest foe, the Houndmaster tossed the rattling chains away. The beasts he once held, now free, rushed off to the sides of their brethren a ways away. The loose chains still attached to them sent out a clatter like a chorus of hellish bells behind them as they slid over rock and dirt. Upon reaching their kin, each hound spun about, watching with lowered and greedy golden eyes as the duel between their master and this interloper commenced.

Anessa took a final moment to look from the herald to the inquisitor's daemonhammer, then from the hammer to her boltgun. Still hooked to her side, the weapon was a reliable device to fall back on, but her remaining ammunition was in poor supply. With that being but the first issue to come to mind, she also knew it would be of utmost difficulty to even land a shot on a foe with such a wiry body as this creature's was, yet not outright impossible. Even so, a daemon with talents laying within close-quarters combat would only add to the difficulty. Knowing of the tactic she had to fall on to best survive this duel, she gripped her hammer as well as her faith had itself a grip on her.

All she had to do was best the fiend in close combat; hold off his assault, wait for a moment of weakness to expose itself, and crush him with this holy tool. It would be a quick and destructive blow; maybe just enough on both aspects to end the fight, then and there. And it would be a task far easier said than done...

 _"Blood for the Blood God! _Skulls for the Skull Throne!_ "_ His head arching upward to the darkened heavens above, the Houndmaster screamed to them with such intensity that the burning air around it seemed to become distorted with its brazen pitch. With it, Anessa found her ears ringing with a pain most excruciating, but her stance and grimace only tightened.

On clawed feet, his once-visible limp falling behind the veil of his rampant bloodlust, the daemon suddenly burst forth to meet her in combat. He finished his rabid scream with the equally maddened warcry, "Your head is _mine,_ warrioress! Mine, mine, _mine!_ "

* * *

 **Author's notes:** My deepest, most humble appreciation to those who have favorited and followed this story. You all have my truest appreciation for reading this tale to the point it has thus far come to. More to come as well! Apologies if the chapters have been appearing as few and far between as of late; combined with my work, my scatterbrained nature, and tending to my mines with my brothers Squee and Spleen, I've simply been falling into repeated states of despair with the knowledge that no matter how much lore I soak into my brain, I'll never capture the authenticity and grace of a true Warhammer author, even if I try to emulate the pronunciation of some of the words and text mannerisms. That, and I've only now realized that I'm slowly defiling the lore Be'lakor stands for in present day 40k lore. Hooray for me. Sorry if that sounds snarky, I'm half awake at the time of writing/posting this, and I generally feel sad and despondent whilst in such a state of mind.

Next time on _Shadows of Damnation:_ Anessa fights a herald of Khorne, _mano-a-mano_ , and has herself a bloody good time with it as the Dark Master watches with a box of popcorn in hand.


	6. Chapter 6: To See Red

Anessa was prepared for a fight of terrible proportions when she first found out she had entered the lands of Khorne.

The image of treading through a place inhabited solely by the most murderous fiends in all of reality and unreality was not a thought to be taken with a grain of salt; truly, it was impossible to think of anything outside of enduring an encounter with creatures whose only purpose was to burn and break and ruin and slaughter all but mindlessly in their efforts to fulfill their master's wishes; all spent in the name of their horrid Blood God. Anessa braced herself with her armour and faith, readying all her skill for confrontation.

And yet, even with the idea searing its mark into her mind and for all that her rightful caution did for her, she found herself not fully prepared for what this realm would offer. No living being not born and bred within this realm of unreality possibly could have. The Herald of Khorne who had challenged her proved to be an arduous test. Moving with a mixture of brutish and refined slashing strikes or errant swipes backed with a raw sort of power, and it was abundantly clear that all he showed her throughout was but a taste of the untethered hatred of this blasted land.

The creature became a bloody streak of scarlet at times, jumping back just to rush at her again and again with his great and wicked hellblade raised and ready to kill. Every time his strike came lashing down to meet her, Anessa narrowly dodged or counted the attack with her daemonhammer, which halted every attack it met. The crude runes of slaughter and anger etched upon the fell weapon the daemon wielded were countered and repulsed by the holy runes and markers of her own. Even still, for all her adept movements and meticulously-places counters, the daemon was pushing her back. It was fierce and vicious in its assault, giving scant quarter to its adversary, but so too was it acting predictable enough with its attacks, if barely so, for Anessa's mind to think. It gave her time, as she defended herself, to analyze the unnatural being's movements, to seek an opening to exploit, before the foul entity could push her to a piece of terrain that would trip her or over a ledge she had yet to identity behind her. She just needed an opening...

Then, she saw one.

Anessa pulled the fore of her daemonhammer back to her side, whipping the base of its shaft, hard and deadly in its own right, to the entity's ribs. A feeling of impact shook through her hands and a hollow cracking sound rang into Anessa's ears. When the creature uttered a shallow squeal of pain it validated her hit's success. But whether or not the blow was enough to give her that crucial opportunity to turn the fight in her favor, she would have to find out.

Seizing this moment, she raised her weapon up to finally throw an attack of her own. It was only just being given when the herald's blade rose to meet it. What little momentum she had gathered ended by his thrust, Anessa saw her chance ruined by the being's unnatural resilience. One deft swipe that knocked the daemonhammer away later and the two had returned to trading blows. This time, it did not last long.

The Houndmaster caught the fore of the hammer in one return. The blessed warhammer entwined with its own unholy weapon, the entity held her there. Close enough was he so that Anessa could see the details of hideous visage, and close enough as well to observe his callous, possessed weapon in full detail, whether she wished to or not. It had a razor edge sharpened by pure hatred. A stream of animated runes ran along its black surface; just gazing upon them rendered her eyes sore. The heat of the hellfire exuding from the dark blade singed her armour and skin in equal measure, but Anessa persevered through the growing temperature. She endured it all, and finally summed up enough strength to shove her adversary back. Anessa went to make another attack as soon as she was clear, and when she did she raised her hammer high.

The daemon proved itself faster.

The hammer's head surged forth, striking nothing but air and tainted earth. The Houndmaster had dodged the mighty attack and rushed forward. Deft and quick, his blade swung horizontally to the warrioress' left side. While it effortlessly sliced through the armor it met, the wound that came out of it was only a graze to the outer side of the sororita's left thigh. Even still, it cut deep enough to wound his foe nonetheless. Anessa gasped as a sudden sting of pain shot through her. Hit by its sharp bite, a bite that tore a wave of terrific pain throughout her entire body, she stumbled back. Seeking but a second to recuperate, she nearly dropped to a knee, but seeing her foe circling about, she put up her defense.

The Houndmaster roared. His blade rose high, then came down. For all the pain it caused her, from an injury she still had yet to so much as look at and assess, Anessa managed to stumble up and leap forward, avoiding it by almost a foot. The blade harmlessly passed her by inches, cracking into the ground where she once stood. Stone and earth alike were parted as a knife ran through warm butter. A jagged line of fire gathered upon the pathway where the blade penetrated, and a snarl of disappointment, from the herald and a great many of the observing daemons alike, filled the sooty air.

Anessa staggered back to her feet and stared back the way of the Khornate daemon. The Houndmaster was shrieking something in its daemonic tongue. The Sister of Battle had little idea as to what any of the words it uttered meant in her tongue, but she did know that they were obviously horrible, seething things. While the enraged cry scratched at her ears, Anessa chose to focus on what next to do. Taking a hand off of her wounded thigh, she held her hammer close and backstepped as best as she could.

The pain in her thigh was biting at her. Burning and agonizing, like a host of stinging hornets jammed into a pocket of her flesh, it was too much to ignore. Blood spilling from the parted armour and flesh on her thigh in thick, dripping beads, Anessa nearly lost her balance as she moved back, trying as she would to put a further distance between herself and this daemon. Every second she had to regain her spent energy was invaluable. The only doubt that itched at the tactic was whether or not it mattered.

The daemon could care less of his prey's thoughts and worries. He pulled his weapon from the floor at last and snarled at her, eyes ablaze. He was blind with an anger no normal human could hold, yet his sight was alight with vividness enough to witness her moving away. Somehow, the entity's seething visage became that much more enraged, if such a thing were truly possible. He approached her, his pace slow and somehow graceful with controlled fury.

"Stand! _Fight!_ " the herald was shrieking in rampant frustration. He trailed his blade's flickering point over the ground as he sauntered over to the prey he called out, carving another, longer trail of hellfire into the ichor-soaked brimstone. "Why is it that you flee from death, woman? You who so recklessly chose to traverse the realm of Khorne? Dithering quim! Bring your weapon here, bring it against mine with all the hatred you bear, or fall to your frail, quivering knees! Fall and _die!_ "

The Houndmaster pounced forward as his rasp concluded. Thin legs pushed its great form far from the shattered earth. Anessa had an opportunity to dodge the coming blow again, but that tactic was one she knew she could not rely on. She instead braced herself, her caution gone and mind infected with a budding maelstrom of rage that filled her view with red; rage at this hated daemon, from her stinging wound, at this entire situation she was abandoned to by fate's fickle will. Shouting, she met the daemon in combat with a great swing. While mighty, it was heavy, sluggish and reckless to a fault, and the daemon knew this. With surgical precision he placed his sword just under the falling cudgel's holy head, and with a simple jerk of the obsidian blade he pushed the hammer aside, batting it right out of Anessa's hands. The Sororita was weaponless; the daemon hissed and cackled with glee as it sensed the looming end of its mortal adversary, readying now in a motion for a deathblow. But Anessa's attack was not yet done.

Crying out the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind with all the air held in her smoke-filled lungs, Anessa launched her head at her foe. A zephyr of palest white stained with all manners of crimson, her forehead met the hideous, unguarded face of her adversary directly. A wretched, wet cracking sound filled the air. An inhuman squeal followed it. A crunch of arid soil being stepped on. A heavy thud.

Equal parts surprised, stunned, and damaged by the blow, the herald was knocked back and out of his lunge. He fell to his feet, their ebon talons just barely catching him and holding his balance, one hand clutched to his face. Only a harsh second later did he remove it to cast a baleful expression to the warrior nun who caught him unawares. It was just in time to see a darkly-armoured fist flying his way. It hit him without obstruction. The flesh and bone sitting between his small eyes concaving, he lost his balance at last and fell away.

Onto the brutalized ground the Houndmaster fell face-first. He landed ungracefully upon his chest, his accursed, fiery sword flying out of his grasp and clattering over stone and rock meters away. Immediately he planted his foreclaws upon the floor of this blasted land, intending to get back up, reclaim his weapon and put an end to the foe who rubbed a foul stain onto his honor. Anessa did not allow him to do so.

A shrill cry sounded again from the Houndmaster when Anessa leapt forth and slammed the soles of her ebon sabatons into the daemon's back. The impact was tremendous, at least enough to crush the spine of a human. Planting and lifting her uninjured right leg as the other stood atop him, Anessa simply began stomping it on him. Fury backing every motion of her leg, she kicked and stamped and struck her armored foot at his neck, his arms and, of course, his spine, to keep him down.

While Warpspawned flesh and muscle squelched and bruised, it did not break at this assault. Violent tremors entered Anessa's limb as it grew tired from its hateful attempt to crush the fiend to death. Grim realization began to set in. The daemon would gain a hold and break out of her pin any second now. It was in the desperate moment that followed that she saw an opportunity to twist to her advantage, and it lay on the daemon's very body.

He boasted a long pair of black horns that stood out amongst the other several others it possessed on its head alone. A cruel idea, a savage idea, permeated Anessa's mind and took firmest root. Knowing just what she wanted to do now, Anessa's gauntleted hands seized one of them. Placing one foot on the Houndmaster's neck as the other remained where it was along his spine, she started pulling on the horn. And pulling. And pulling.

"Foulest spawn of... bleakest womb..." She blazed through gritted teeth. Harder and harder her grip tightened and teeth further clenched, gums bleeding from the duress. Louder and louder the daemon she stood atop bellowed and snarled in vicious protest, doing all he could to buck her off and failing utterly. Every time it even remotely achieved a chance of escaping the vengeful mortal's grasp, Anessa would strike him with fist and foot until its protest faltered, and she would then continue her violent tugging.

Then a noise broke through the voices of the two combatants. It was that of a stomach-churning crunch of bone being splintered. Anessa had torn the horn off. The Houndmaster screamed in agony and helpless rage, raking his claws over the ground to turn himself over, to no avail. The daemons surrounding them roared. Be'lakor smiled, approval all but radiating from his shadowy visage.

Anessa looked then at the Houndmaster's lower torso. Aiming it with the last of the awareness she still held, she plunged it downward. Almost effortlessly did the dark horn pierce through the waist of the very being it belonged to. Anessa stuck it true into her foe's midsection, deeper and deeper until it was completely impaled through the bloodletter's abdomen and rooted itself a fair ways into the warped earth beneath either of them. Even then she hammered her gauntleted fist upon its splintered tip of her end, making doubly sure.

Beneath her, the herald of Khorne could only flail about, kicking and clawing at whatever its pinned form could kick and claw at. It screeched ear-numbingly vile profanity in several languages, cursing at Anessa up to the part when the Battle-Sister's hands, both trembling fiercely, went back to his head, gripping onto the back of his elongated cranium and fore of his jaw. Rage driving her, Anessa's face curled into something beautifully incandescent. She pulled and shouted, screaming until her strength overpowered the daemon's. She tugged his skull to an angle that was unnatural, even for one of his accursed kind, and then further still. With a strong, final pull and a loud snap that drove all else to a temporary silence, the Houndmaster's entire body suddenly leveled, then abruptly fell limp.

Be'lakor's lids fell to slits, studying the sororita carefully while she swallowed breaths and dismounted the daemon's cadaver in a stride both weary and clumsy. She was moving with purpose in a hobble upon her wounded leg, blood still flowing from the gash in the flesh and armour in small spurts. The First-Damned watched ever so carefully as she reclaimed her hammer with shaking hands. With it back in her possession she turned back around and shuffled toward her fallen foe.

Anessa began inspecting him with glaring eyes. Carefully, bleary as her sight was, she looked for a sign of remaining life in this daemon, just to be sure. As time crawled by, nothing seemed to happen. Sure enough, it seemed like the battle was truly over.

Then the herald's claws twitched once.

With a thunderous knell of metal meeting flesh, the daemonhammer rose up and slammed into the Houndmaster's body with impunity. Anessa cried out with the swing—not a cry for her Emperor, not a cry for her sistren, just a cry of purest unrelenting hatred—and reeled the hammer back for another swing. Then another. Then another.

Again and again, Anessa struck her hammer upon the hide of her foe. She struck it after the daemon became but a broken mess of pulped flesh and scattered limbs. Boiling crimson liquids flew up in gushes and geysers to stain her body with every strike. She struck it until she stood in a small, jagged crater formed of her own doing, and only then, when the daemon's shattered form was rendered all but shapeless, did her wrath show signs of subsiding.

Be'lakor watched with a roused gratification from the sight of the sororita's merciless actions. It was truly a sight to behold. Hers was an image of undeniable beauty bent into the form of unbridled fury that could only be sated by the limit of her mortal stamina. She was a knightess of red, painted so from the very blood of her own enemy, driven to her bitter edge by hatred and anger and vengeance most true. She had destroyed her enemy; not simply had she bested and slain him, but utterly annihilated him.

It was not long before his eyes next traveled to the pack of flesh hounds congregating nearby. The bloodletters watching their sibling still stood where they were or else began to depart. But these beasts not only all stayed, but approached the spot where Anessa has sent their master into oblivion. Taking the time to look about, Anessa finally paused and looked to the gargantuan crimson wraiths, her stare still full of an inane sort of hate that reason alone could not discontinue.

As Anessa regarded them so, they, too, regarded her with glowing eyes bent to tight glares and scaly maws closed. They just stood there in a patient formation, not preparing to pounce but prepared to defend. Frills rattling softly in threatening display, they were ready and willing to tear into her if she tried to tear into them. They looked at her with their simple beady eyes, daring her to do it. Daring, hoping, lusting. Anessa seemed prepared to kill again, lifting her weapon their way and assuming a low stance showing she was ready to charge. They growled, frills rattling loudly now, inviting her to test her prowess against theirs. And the Battle-Sister looked ready to oblige them.

But she hesitated.

Anessa stopped there, her body's tense visage fading and posture suddenly relaxing. At this, Be'lakor's head tilted.

Anessa paused what was to be her indubitably fatal advance. Slowly, so very slowly, she lowered her warhammer, its shaft and head cracked and beaten in equal measure from the duress of combat. Gone was her vicious, vacuous sneer; she was now choking down long, hot gasps of air, her eyes closed fully as relief of her true fight's conclusion finally wormed its way into her brain and washed over her.

All of her violent intent gone, Anessa turned around and sluggishly began ambling off, in the direction of the observing Daemon Prince. The head of the hammer dragging over the ground as it rested in her off hand, she limped his way, almost sullenly so. The hounds moved forward as she departed—not stalking toward the transgressor who savaged their leader, but to the fallen herald himself. Each hound bent their frilled heads down with sullen whines to pick up a sundered piece or sizable portion of the ruined daemon's cadaver in their slavering maws and began milling off into the background with what they took.

While the beasts dragged what little was left of their master from the field, Anessa continued onward to Be'lakor. She looked utterly soaked in crimson. Her armour, her white hair, her rugged-but-fair face all showed now as red. Dripping red, like scarlet paint had been sprayed and spattered over her entire form. Every step left a bloody print in the blasted soil.

Weighed down by armour, weapon, wound and steaming ichor, Anessa walked sluggishly on as she was. When she continued past Be'lakor in her limping stride without shifting him so much as a single glance of recognition, still wearing that blank, dazed, weary expression, the Daemon Prince hummed in the minor amusement the scene afforded him. He chose to follow her, though not before making one final look back to the Khornate daemons they were departing from.

Barely a minute transpired afterward when Be'lakor let his forked tongue unravel. "That was a most impressive display, sororita," he chose to politely compliment. "Most impressive indeed. But for all of its splendor, I could just as easily see the issues you suffered against. How fare you after that ordeal?"

Anessa replied only with more panting. Her lungs were no doubt on fire still, given all of the energy she had expunged in the bout that left her thoroughly drenched in messy red by her foe's violent exsanguination. Be'lakor satisfied himself with gazing upon her crimson form until the tired sounds died down and he knew she could properly reply.

"What you did after smiting your foe was truly remarkable," Be'lakor said now.

Anessa's visage was still mostly blank, with what parts of it that were not instead tensing slightly with a dull awareness. "What... is so remarkable?" she breathed weakly.

"The fact that you resisted giving into your rage at the bitter end, of course." The First-Damned's response sounded earnest, but one could scarcely tell when a daemon revealed the truth. "A harrowing ordeal is it to resist the temptations anger and rage afford an individual, especially to one whose life revolves around the wondrous art of war and battle. To be an able-bodied creature doing combat against a daemon of Khorne is known to awaken and force out the truest bloodlust within one's soul. The singing of weapon clashing against weapon calls out to you, tempts you to express all your reckless fury 'til you can spend no more. Such a sudden and incredible thirst for the combat before you can only be satiated with blood and victory. Had you not been so strong of will, I am certain you would have charged those hounds. You would have incurred their wrath."

He looked down at her and smirked. "You would have been torn apart."

Silence held Anessa for a minute. Then two. Finally she again spoke, but it came out as the perplexed-seeming question of, "Wh-what?" After its utterance, she at last looked up to Be'lakor, and he took notice that her blue eyes were no longer wide and blank. Still shocked, yes, but not vacantly so.

Realization dawned upon the daemon that she was not listening to what he had commented about. He shook his horned head, sniggering to himself.

"Hmm? Oh, I was just rambling..." Be'lakor waved a hand nonchalantly, and Anessa's head bent forward again. "Just complimenting your prowess in both expressing and handling your anger. Good show, by the way. I sense Khorne is soon to gain word of your triumph and the manner by which you achieved it. He will indubitably judge you worthy of continuing through the rest of his domain."

"Oh... oh..." the Sister of Battle breathed. She was looking at her arms now. She could see the blood so thoroughly soaking them, not to mention the rest of her body. Her mind was evidently in a state of hazy confusion, and Be'lakor knew this well by now.

"Is it all a blur?"

Anessa blinked thrice, faintly making sense of his question. "Yes."

"Hmm." Be'lakor stroked his chin with a claw, his smile only growing wider and toothier. "You may have slain many a heretic, and mayhaps a daemon or two, but I think it appropriate to hazard a guess that you have never fought a duel so emotionally testing as this before." His red eyes aglow, they spun around in their sockets, examining his accomplice's limping figure with renewed vigour. "Am I correct?"

"No," she flatly replied.

Be'lakor's mighty smile shrunk. He took his hand from his jaw, the lids over his eyes disappearing into the folds of his deep sockets and his great wings ruffling behind him. "Oh, really? What then was more taxing than what you did this day?"

Sadly for the ancient daemon, no response came this time to tickle the buds of his capricious satisfaction. Silence had again snared its claws around the weary warrior nun. She had not even the energy to indulge in conversation with the Daemon Prince.

There was no point now in tormenting her, Be'lakor judged. She was injured and tired from a heated battle that nearly claimed her life, her mind stretched out beyond its normal folds and taking the time to resettle itself. Be'lakor chose the silent path as well as he moved ahead of his companion to again take the lead, patiently discerning that he could receive proper answers to his many queries after Anessa had time to breath and reflect on what she had done. Until that time came around, he mirthfully contented himself on one truth that rang out in his keen ears.

This little venture was already turning out better than he had hoped...

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** YOU ASKED FOR IT. _Merry Slaaneshmas._


End file.
